DAVID SNUBBED OUT his cigarette on the bottom of the glass ashtray. The butt rose from the ashes like a crooked tombstone, a sardonic image if ever there was one. He watched eddies of smoke flow about the ceiling, batted by the languid revolutions of a ceiling fan. The room felt strangely dated, as if years of tobacco smoke had preserved it. Fluorescent lights buzzed in metal cages, casting a yellowish tinge over the stark, utilitarian desks. Steel file cabinets stood sentry in the halls. Everything was either grey or pea green or that nauseous yellow-brown no-colour that grew inexplicably popular in the 1970s, which David thought of as Bureaucratic Beige. Flat-screen monitors perched atop the desks, sleek black anachronisms giving the lie to the office’s timelessness.
Wanda walked over and handed David a manila folder.
“You read all of it?” he asked.
“Skimmed it. No warrant in there.”
“Don’t need one just yet.”
“You sure? You aren’t gonna be able to hold the boy, you don’t charge him with anything. We could nail him for the forty-five, at least. A public defender even half-awake could shake him out of it, probably, but at least it’d give you some ground for the time being.”
David shook his head. “I’m playing this one a little different.”
“You’re the boss. I hope you aren’t draggin’ me into any bullshit, though.”
“You’re squeaky clean, I promise you.”
“He know you’re not a Toronto cop?”
“If he asks, I’ll be sure to tell him.”
Wanda rolled her eyes. “You Niagara boys play by your own rules, huh?”
“It’s the Wild West, baby.” David tapped the folder on the desk to line up the papers inside it. He slipped the folder in his briefcase. “You think the kid’s stewed long enough?”
“It’s been damn near two hours. You hold him much longer, he might buck on you, start whining for his lawyer.”
David nodded. “Thanks for your help, Wanda.”
“You got it. I’m headin’ home. You’ve got the address, come by once you’re finished up with big boy in there.”
“Thanks, but I’ll probably just suck it up and drive back to the Falls.”
“Fool, it’s two in the damn morning already. You grill this guy properly, you could be here for hours. I don’t want you fallin’ asleep at the wheel and goin’ off the road.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
“Sweet nothing, my luck they’ll ring my ass up and have me respond to the scene. You interrupt my sleep by dyin’, I’m not gonna be too pleased with you.”
“Hands at ten and two until I’m out of Toronto, you got it.”
Wanda gave David a quick hug. “Don’t you beat that boy too badly, now.”
“I was always better at teasing, anyway.”
She left David in her cubicle, alone save for a few night-shifters plugging away at their keyboards and a belligerent suspect with an interesting story to tell. The trick was to make him feel like telling it.
David squared his shoulders and set his jaw. He let every trace of emotion, good or bad, drain from his face. It flowed away slowly as syrup from an upended bottle, smoothing out lines and sanding down any corners that might betray a sneer or smile. He checked himself out in the mirror and saw 186 pounds of anonymous, granite-faced law enforcement.
Derek McCulloch sat low in his chair with his arms crossed casually over his chest. The room was small and windowless, bordered on all sides by bare concrete walls, and empty save for a small metal-framed chair and Lucite table, both of them bolted to the floor. David brought his own chair in with him: a stately tall-backed piece of oak, bigger, higher, heavier than Derek’s. He dragged it along the floor, its legs capped with iron rivets to make the journey that much louder. The chair was a good prop; he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. He set it down with authority—not quite a slam, but making his presence known—and made himself comfortable. A lone bulb in a wire cage provided the room’s only light, and David could use it to great effect. He leaned forward, tilting his head to lay a band of shadow over his eyes.
“How you doing, Derek?”
Derek looked at him evenly, unimpressed by the theatrics. “I’ve been better.”
David breathed a small laugh. The man was cool as coffin dirt, he had to give him that much. Bullying him into talking wasn’t going to cut it. Better to throw him off balance, see if he trips.
“Can you tell me where you were on the night of September 8th?”
Derek blinked, his face otherwise unchanged. “I dunno, man, probably not. Do you remember what you were doing that night?’
“Yeah, I do. Investigating a murder.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Okay, wise ass, you remember what you were doing the night of, I dunno, September 3rd?” David paused, his face neutral. Derek gave a smug smile. “Exactly. You come at me with some date that gives you a hard-on, but it don’t mean shit to me.”
“Cute, Derek,” David leaned forward on the table, giving his best no-bullshit cop shtick. “But I’m not the one in the hot seat. You are. So you’d best rack your brain.”
Derek bit his lip, his gaze cocked to the side. “What day of the week was it?”
“Thursday, going into Friday.”
“Then yeah, as a matter of fact, I do know what I was doing that night. I was at the Blue Lagoon.”
“Were you with anyone else who can corroborate your story?”
“There were other people there, but I wasn’t with them.”
“So what were you doing there, exactly?”
“Drinking. Eating. Singing karaoke.”
David cocked an eyebrow. “Singing karaoke?”
“That’s right, asshole. I rule the mike. Go down there tonight and ask around about the guy who sang ‘Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ by the Stones. I owned that shit, man. Someone’ll remember.”
“And that’s what you were doing September 8th?”
“That and maybe getting laid. Don’t put that down as a statement, though, ‘cause I don’t remember one way or the other.”
“Struck out a few times in your day, huh?”
Derek shrugged. “You win some, you lose some, right?”
David flipped open his briefcase. “You enjoy your stay at the Jupiter Motel?”
Derek straightened up in his seat, adjusting the collar of his shirt with a tug. Tells, definitely, but minor ones. His face was a sculpture of bemused indifference, as if the question were so much small talk.
“Please, man, that place is a rathole. I pick better accommodations than that when I go to the Falls.”
David had to give the guy credit. He didn’t rattle. His fingers hesitated over the sheet of glossy paper in his briefcase and let it lie for now. There were a few avenues he wanted to pursue before things got openly hostile. “You visit the Falls often, do you? You a big gambler? Or just a sucker for haunted houses and wax museums?”
“I’m a contractor. Maintenance and shit. I got a couple of clients down that way, I work for ‘em sometimes.”
“Maintenance I understand. Never heard of a contractor getting paid to shit.” David rifled through the papers in his briefcase as if queuing up a key piece of evidence. It occurred to him that when he started going for the jugular in interrogations, he was basically doing his best impression of Walter Pulaski. Christ, the old guy must be contagious. “By clients, you mean Frank Ballaro.”
“He’s one of them, yeah.”
“He must be pretty shaken up lately, all things considered. You send him your condolences?”
“We don’t got that kind of relationship. I see the guy again, I’ll say a few kind words.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that. Did you know Eddie Ballaro, Derek?”
Derek’s lips split in a wide grin that failed to meet his eyes. “Okay. Fuck this. We’re done here.”
David sat back in his chair, legs casually crossed. “Is it something I said?”
“Yeah, nice try. Lawyer time, motherfucker.”
“We could certainly go that route, Derek, if you want to. But you might want to give it some thought. Now normally, here’s where I would put on a gentle, slightly hurt tone and say something about how we’re just having a chat, ask you why you want to get lawyers involved. We’re pretty sure this is all some misunderstanding, but you start hiding behind a lawyer, we cops get suspicious, et cetera ad nauseam. But you and I, we’ve danced to this tune before, right? So let’s cut the bullshit. In a normal situation, hell yes do you want a lawyer. Tripping you up and making you say stuff you didn’t mean to say, that’s my job. That’s what gets me up in the morning. But in your case, we’ve got what we like to call extenuating circumstances.”
Derek crossed his arms. “Lawyer, please.”
“Hold on, hold on.” David held up his hand. “Let me talk this through, okay? You don’t have to say a single word more. I’ll talk, you listen. And when I’m done talking, if you still want a lawyer I’ll have one here pronto. Hell, I’ll even let you use the phone, call one of your choice. But if you lawyer up now, you’re still gonna hear my offer, but it’ll be too late to take me up on it. You might walk out of here a bit sooner, but you might be kicking yourself with every step. So what do you say? Can I give my little spiel?”
After a moment’s thought, Derek’s head tilted forward in a barely perceptible nod.
“Great. I’ll keep it short and sweet. Last month, two men were found dead in a motel room in Niagara Falls. It turns out these guys have known connections to Frank Ballaro. Considering this little rendezvous happened three days after Ballaro’s boy was found torn to shreds in a strip club parking lot, my finely tuned detective instincts sensed a connection. You don’t know anything about this, of course. Which is why I find it so strange that we pulled this picture of you from the motel’s surveillance cameras.”
David tossed the photo to Derek. It had been blown up to the size of a sheet of printer paper, the distortion and noise whittled down through digital trickery. Derek glanced at the photo, at David, at the door, his face betraying all the high emotion of someone waiting for a bus. Some brass balls on this one, all right.
“Doesn’t do it for you, huh? Sure, the picture’s a little blurry. Maybe a good defense attorney could pour enough doubt over an accommodating jury to let you slide. Unfortunately for you, this here photograph is just the spark that started the fire that’s about to burn your ass to a crisp. The receptionist knows who was staying in the room where Ballaro’s boys got done, and he gives a pretty good description of the guy, who bears a striking resemblance to the smug young fella sneering back at me this very moment. We pop you in a lineup and have him pick you out, I don’t suppose we’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And then there’s the DNA evidence. Yeah, I know, hotel gets cleaned every day, right? But a place like the Jupiter Motel doesn’t do all that thorough a job. We’ve got hair, blood, a bit of spit-up toothpaste on the sink basin. Even a Kleenex full of good stuff from a one man love-in. No condoms, though, which surprises me for a ladies’ man. Though someone with your pedigree probably had enough sense to nab those before he left.
“In a nutshell, we’ve got more than enough evidence to bring you in, and a better than fifty-fifty shot at conviction. Even if we blow that one, I’m sure a search of whatever hole you’ve burrowed yourself into up here will turn up something interesting. And if not, we’ve always got this.” David reached into his briefcase and pulled out a plastic evidence bag. Derek’s gun lay inside, next to a note card recording the time and place of apprehension.
David swung the gun from side to side, letting his comments stew for a minute, which Derek passed by blowing a series of long, slow breaths through pursed lips, picking at a scab below his chin, and engaging in a number of other small gestures broadcasting boredom but not fear.
“But here’s the thing, Derek. I don’t especially want to do that. Not because I’m a nice guy—I’m not—and not because I think you’re a good kid who might’ve gotten in a little over his head—I don’t. No, the truth is, I just don’t give that much of a shit about Lou Perone or Joseph Santino. I was there before the mess was cleaned up, I saw the scene, and it seems to me like it was them or you. I’m not sure if they were planning to do you there or bring you to some quiet place out of town, but I don’t doubt that the end result would’ve been pretty much the same. So you made your move, and you were quicker. Good on you. That’s self-defence, far as I’m concerned.
“The trouble is, I don’t get to make those distinctions. That’s for the law to decide. But sometimes upholding the law comes down to nothing more than some shitty utilitarian math. What happened to Lou Perone and Joey Santino may or may not be a crime, but either way, it’s over. What happened to Eddie Ballaro, on the other hand, I don’t think that’s over. If I only get to solve one of the two crimes, then seems to me I’m doing society a favor by focusing on Eddie’s.
“So here’s what I’m asking. I want a name. Get me to the bottom of this Ballaro business, and we can write Lou Perone and Joey Santino off as self-defence. No one’s clamouring for justice on their behalf anyway. But things are getting ugly in Niagara, and I want it stopped.”
Derek drummed his fingers on the table. “You want me to tell you who killed Eddie Ballaro?”
“Or at least a solid lead in the right direction, yes. You’re clearly involved to some degree. It’s no secret you and Eddie didn’t get along—”
“Half the fucking city didn’t get along with Eddie. I can barely think of someone who did. If everyone he ever pissed off knows who offed him, why don’t you just knock on a few doors at random? You’ll find someone in fifteen minutes, I guarantee you. No, you know what? Fuck this. Lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer.”
David clamped a cigarette between his teeth. He struck a match and touched the flame to its tip. “You sound pretty sure.”
“I don’t know shit about what happened to Eddie Ballaro. I dunno what fucking memo got circulated, but you all got some pretty fucked-up ideas about what I get up to in my spare time. I can’t answer your question, so cuff me if you’ve got the PC or let me the fuck out of here, please, officer.” He half stood, hands braced against the table, tendons in his neck taut. His posture hung a hair below threatening. David was used to braggadocio, particularly with young male perps, but Derek’s restraint was atypical—and impressive.
“I never said I needed the answer now,” David said. He sent a cloud of tobacco across the room. “Ask around. You can get into places I can’t, talk to people who look at cops like we carry the plague. I’ve worked enough cases to know that whoever was vicious enough to pull a murder that gruesome, at least part of them is proud of it. And who’s gonna worry about spilling some dirt to Matchbook McCulloch, right?”
Derek closed his eyes and rested his head against his chair. It must have been a supremely uncomfortable position, given the hardness of the chair and the angle of his neck, but Derek looked as if he was close to drifting off. “Let me get this straight in my head here. And for the record, this is just me testing out your little hypothetical scenario. I don’t know anything about no motel murders, nothing about Eddie and Vincent Ballaro I didn’t read about in the paper. Basically, you’re approaching a guy who you claim shot and killed two men, both of whom have presumed connections to the Niagara underworld. You then ask that guy to go poking around that very same fucking underworld to dig up clues about yet another murder, which may have spurred off the whole gunfight in question. Do I have this right?”
“That’s pretty much the long and short of it, yeah.”
Derek held his arms up with his palms face up and his wrists parallel, bound by invisible shackles. “Lawyer.”
David tapped ashes onto the interrogation room floor. “You disappoint me, Derek. I didn’t think a guy like you’d be scared of some Main Street riffraff.”
“Oh, please, don’t question my manhood. My poor ego can’t take it.”
“I’ve got no opinion of your manhood one way or the other. But I do question your intelligence. You think you’ll be any safer in lock-up than you will on the street? Ballaro’s got friends on the inside as well as the outside. And in there, you won’t be able to grab a Greyhound once things start going south. You know who we locked up not six months ago? Dino Malone. He was another ‘contractor’ for Ballaro, only he was a bit more like family, the way I hear it. He cut a guy’s head in half with a chainsaw, top to bottom. Peeled his skull like a banana skin. He’s never seeing sunlight again except through bars, but his family’s doing just fine. Got a wife and two kids in a plush condo off of Thorold Stone Road, courtesy of Ballaro enterprises. Makes you wonder what he did to inspire such loyalty, and what he’d be willing to do to keep it.”
For the first time since David had stepped into the interrogation room, Derek looked uncertain. “If I say yes, I just walk out of here?”
“I’ll hold the door for you myself. Of course, I’m counting on you not to just up and disappear. No catching planes or hopping over to the States. I’ve gone ahead and got you flagged as a person of interest with customs, so you won’t find a smooth crossing. I’ll expect weekly check-ins with me and my partner. Somewhere discreet where you won’t be seen mingling with cops. But show up five minutes late and your ass will be APBed so hard there’ll be squad cars looking for you on the moon.”
Derek reached across the table and took the glossy photo from David’s briefcase. He studied it for a while, tilting it forward to better catch the light. “This arrangement, how long does it go on for?”
“Until I’ve got my man.”
“And what if you don’t get him? What if there’s no him around to get? Some people are sayin’ it’s some sort of wild animal doin’ this shit, and I ain’t exactly Davey Crockett.”
“If I’m satisfied you’ve scoured every corner and studied every angle, I’ll call us square. I’m not setting you up to fail, Derek. Hard as it might be for you to believe, I want to see you succeed.”
Derek flicked the photo, making a stiff cracking sound. “No offense, man, but I’ll believe that when I fucking see it.”