Two hours passed before she was cleared to leave the Lorris Arms. She watched Spere’s team work on the car and the body, and, in Dunn’s apartment, she answered Ray Greene’s questions. She told him who Dunn was, about his earlier visit to the station house, his status as a person of only a little interest before she saw him in that grove off of the Ninth Line. Greene was writing it all down. “Twenty-four hours I’ve been on the job, Hazel. Twenty-four hours, and I’m writing your name in a book.”
“Willan must be drinking bubbly. Am I directing traffic in Telegraph Heights until the end of time now?”
“Because you got shot at in the line of duty? He’s not that malicious.” Unawares, he was sitting in the same chair she’d been in three minutes before Dunn’s death. She remained standing. “I have three bodies now, Hazel. That’s all the commissioner knows. For now. But the rest of this happens under me. And if there’s a single deviation from the line of command, I’ll end your career. You might work this case brilliantly, Hazel, but if there’s a single rogue element in it beyond this point, you’re done. I’ll put you up for dismissal.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“You actually think I’d be rejoicing right now if your career had just ended the way Jordie Dunn’s did? We used to be friends, Hazel. I’ve never once wanted something bad to happen to you. But I’m running a police department now and our friendship, whatever it is or was, has no bearing on anything. Because now you work for me; your well-being is my beat. I have to protect you. From the risks you face on the job. From Willan. And from yourself.”
She stared at him for a three-count. Then she said, “We have to get my mother and Cathy Wiest out of my house.”
“They’ve already been picked up. After that?”
“We go where Dunn went this morning.”
“Can you do this without getting yourself or anyone else killed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe this’ll help you get started.” He held his fist out. There was something in his hand: a little ziplock bag. He dropped it into her palm. “It was in one of Dunn’s pockets.”
She held it up. There was a green, twenty-five-dollar casino chip in the bag. It had the image of a little bird on it, and the word SPARROW’S.
“Does it mean anything to you?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she replied. “Was there anything else?”
“Just his keys and his wallet. Fifteen dollars, a driver’s licence belonging to a man named Caleb Merton, and two credit cards.”
“Who’s Caleb Merton?”
“I have no idea. But the ID had Dunn’s picture on it. It looks legit, but it must be fake. Unless it’s his real name.”
Bail drove Hazel back to the station house. Her mother and Cathy Wiest were already there. Her mother looked displeased, but her expression melted when she saw Jordie Dunn’s blood all over Hazel’s pants. She was wearing a patrolman’s jacket over a borrowed shirt now – forensics had taken her blouse as evidence – but she was still in her own pants. The SOCO’s best guess put the shooter on the rooftop of the building across from the apartments. The shot came from four to six hundred metres away. No one had seen anyone mount the roof, nor had anyone been seen coming down from it. Someone with confidence and a rifle had gotten in and out without being detected. There were two shells on the gravel roof: one for each of the two shots. Hazel had the casings in an evidence bag, and after making sure her mother and Cathy were being looked after, she tossed the bag to Wingate.
“They’re thirty-ought-sixes,” he said, looking at them. “That’s deer calibre.”
“Why leave the shells behind?”
“Everyone shoots these,” he said. “They’re in a hundred different hunting rifles. They don’t mean anything if the shooter was in a hurry, which I imagine he was.” Wingate studied the casings. She lay the bag with the casino chip on top of them.
“Whoever did the shooting probably didn’t want this left behind.”
He turned the chip over and studied both sides. “Where’s it from?”
“It was in Dunn’s pocket.”
“Sparrow’s? Is there a casino anywhere in North America with this name?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a tiny one in those trees.”
Wingate turned the ziplock bag with the casings over in his hand.
“Dunn told me something,” she said. “He told me Henry was trying to help her.”
“The girl?”
“Kitty.”
“What do you think?”
“I think someone’s going to have to go for a walk in the woods,” she said. “But I don’t know how we’re going to get there without being noticed.”
“Someone’s going to have to go in one of those cabs.”
“You think so?”
“I think I know how, too.”
“How?”
“I’ll use the password.”
“Password?” She squinted painfully at him. “What password are you talking about?”
“Something I saw in Roland’s report from Tuesday. I’m going to need some money, though.”
“What’s the password, James?”
“You say Wiest wrote himself a cheque for ten thousand dollars?”
“I don’t have ten thousand bucks, James. Will you tell me what your plan is?”
He handed the ziplock bag back. “I’m going to tell Greene first,” he said.
After a pause, she asked him, “Will you at least tell me the password?”
“Ronnie,” he replied.