"Mee-ow."
"They ran a story about Barnett two, three years ago. He was heading up the mayor's anti-drug task force then. Cleaning up Englewood, other parts of the city that were basic open-air markets for drugs and guns. We didn't run it because it was personal and it didn't strike us as fair game."
"Go on."
Hale turned to his computer and tapped something into a search engine. "I want to call this up because the headline, as I recall, was gutter fucking poetry and I want to do it justice." We waited a moment until the item appeared on screen: "Cop's Kid Caught in Crack Crackdown."
"Barnett's son?"
"Colin James Barnett, age seventeen. He was arrested by police in Brookfield-that's a suburb out west-selling crack cocaine at a strip mall. Nothing big-time. Basically financing his own habit. Buy seven grams, sell six, get one free, that kind of thing."
"What happened to him?"
"First-time offender and white? He got probation and an order to get treatment."
"I'm guessing drug treatment is expensive here?"
"Yeah, we don't have your socialized Canadian medicine. Costs an arm, a leg and a pint of blood for any decent program."
"Which your average detective can't afford."
"Unless he comes into contact with a Simon Birk, who has lots of money and needs a friendly cop."
"You going to look into this?" I asked.
"Like a proctologist."
"You'll keep me posted?"
"That may not be my top priority."
"But you'll fit it in somewhere."
"I told you before, I'm here to gather information, not dispense it."
The tabloid story was still up on Hale's screen. I looked at the byline under the lurid headline. Paul Vrabowski. "All right," I said. "Think Paul Vrabowski will give me the time of day?"
"Think and Paul Vrabowski don't belong in the same sentence," he said. "Let me make some calls and get back to you." "Book your flight yet?" I asked Jenn.
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Same one you were on."
"All right. In the meantime, see what you can find out about a Chicago cop named Tom Barnett. Detective with the Bureau of Investigative Services."
"What about him?"
"Everything you can find. His record, who he reports to, details about his son's drug treatment."
"What's the connection?"
"I think he wants me dead."
"Jonah…"
I gave her the same precis of the day's events I'd given Hale.
"So you think Birk has Barnett in his pocket."
"Which goes a long way toward confirming the theory that the home invasion was an inside job."
"Which will do you no good if you're dead or in jail."
"For the moment," I said, "I'm safe in my room. Both locks locked and the chain on. Hear from Cantor yet?"
"Yes. He couriered his statement about an hour ago. I read through it and it looks pretty complete."
"Okay. Call Hollinger and-no, wait. I'll call."
"Thought you might."
"Make a copy and ship it over to her on a one-hour service. I want her to have it in front of her when I talk to her." Hollinger sounded remote and not just because of the hundreds of miles that separated us.
"I'm willing to concede that Cantor's story sounds plausible," she said.
"That's it?"
"It's hardly a deposition," she said. "There's nothing legally binding about it. And it's totally hearsay, not to mention self-serving. One participant in a conspiracy to commit fraud accusing another alleged co-conspirator."
"Call him in."
"I have," she said. "First thing tomorrow."
"What else have you found out?"
"That I'm able to share with you?"
"Katherine-"
"Don't Katherine me. I can't tell you anything I wouldn't tell a reporter."
"You wouldn't have known about Martin Glenn's fight with Cantor if I hadn't told you. You wouldn't have known about Will Sterling's connection either."
I heard her sigh deeply into her phone. "All right, Jonah. There are a couple of things we have that lend credence to your version of things. Your partner forwarded me the email Maya Cantor sent to Sterling the night she died. It would seem to contradict the mindset of a person who was about to kill herself. We're opening an investigation into her death. A forensic team is going through her apartment as we speak and the scope will be far beyond what the coroner did. We've also asked Jenn to bring in Maya's laptop. Our people can probably do a more thorough search of its contents than you could."
"What else?"
"We found phone calls made from Sterling's house to Cantor's office that fit the timeline you suggested. And calls from Cantor to Simon Birk that followed closely on the heels."
"You're starting to believe me, aren't you?"
"I'll follow up any lead that could help me close these cases," she said.
"Anything new on Glenn?"
"Our financial analyst traced payments made from Cantor to Martin Glenn that seem beyond the scope of work billed by EcoSys. Which supports the theory Cantor was trying to buy a clean bill of health for the Harbourview site. What about you?" she asked. "Anything coming out of Chicago I should know about?"
"You could say that. Birk tried to have me killed today."
"What! Why didn't you-"
"Because I can't prove it was him. I also can't prove the sun's going to rise in the east tomorrow, but I know it, just like I know this."
I told her my theory that Birk had staged the robbery at his house when he was at his lowest financial ebb; how he had co-opted the lead investigator, Tom Barnett, who needed money to get his son off drugs; how I had been granted an audience with His Birkness and the naked ape, Francis Curry; how Barnett had appeared on the scene seconds after the Stalin look-alike had tried to gun me down.
"Come back to Toronto," she said. "Let me see what I can do through official channels."
"No way."
"Jonah-"
"Don't you get this way when you're working a murder?" I asked. "Don't you feel like you have to keep going, not stop, not take a step back until you find out what happened and why?"
"I have a badge," she said. "I have a gun. I have an entire police service behind me. I have powers granted by the province."
"I have a black belt."
"Don't joke about it. I know things got off on the wrong foot with us the other night but I want… I don't want… I-"
"You care about me?"
"Yes, and damn you for making me say it."
"I fully intend to come back in one piece," I said. "And take you to a restaurant not owned by anyone remotely notorious."
"So be careful."
"Everyone keeps telling me that. Even Barnett."
"But are you listening?"
CHAPTER 37
Jericho Hale called and asked if I had an expense account.
I said I did.
"Then get ready to abuse it. I've got something on Tom Barnett I think you'll find interesting."
"How interesting?"
"Interesting enough for you to buy me a steak dinner and a glass of red wine and a shot or two of the Macallan for starters. There's a pretty good joint right in your hotel."
"Kitty O'Shea's?"
"Naw, that's more of a lunch place. I'm talking the Buckingham Steak House. Or if you want to get out a little, there's Petterino's over by the Goodman Theatre."
"I wouldn't mind getting out. In the meantime, there's something else you might want to check."
"Like I got the time?"
"Put young Alvaro on it."
"And have to share a byline? Maybe when the lake freezes over."
"Never mind. Run a check on unsolved homicides for the… I don't know, three months after Birk's home invasion. See if any were a white male, six feet or so. Ideally he'd have a connection to Birk or Francis Curry. Maybe a security guard at one of the buildings or construction sites. Hell, maybe someone who worked for a carpet cleaning company."