FICTION | Killer on the Kame, Episode 5

PREVIOUSLY IN KILLER ON THE KAME

(Stop! If you are new to the story, the best way to catch up is to read previous episodes here. Spoilers below!)

Out walking her beagle Milo, Emma Brennan comes across a crime scene—a dead body at a construction site in East Lofthill. When she gets home, she tells her husband Matt that it’s the same man who came to their house the day before, selling insulation. Matt remembers the man acting oddly in their basement with a metal detector. On a hunch, Matt takes a sledgehammer to the basement floor and discovers a buried toolbox filled with slender gold bars worth about a million dollars. Detective Sergeant Janice Cleary and Detective Constable Trent Frayne, of the Niagara Constabulary Service, are assigned to investigate the homicide. They determine the victim’s identity: Leonard Bouchard, recently released from prison, with a history of thefts from construction sites. Cleary and Frayne soon deduce that Bouchard had targeted only certain new homes in East Lofthill. They head out to interview Emma and Matt’s next door neighbour, Kim, a realtor, who seems to know more than she’s saying. Likewise, when the detectives speak to Emma and Matt, they too appear to be hiding something. On a hunch, Cleary and Frayne drive west into the country to speak with an ex-con, who reveals that shortly before a planned construction site theft a few years back, one of the thieves—Carmine Rizzolo—went missing and hasn’t been seen since.

Detective Sergeant Janice Cleary and Detective Constable Trent Frayne walked into Cat’s Caboose and the young woman at the door asked if they wanted a table for two.

Frayne shook his head. “No, we’re meeting someone.”

Cleary nodded. “There he is,” and started walking through the dining room.

Detective Sergeant Donny Culp was sitting at a table by himself, finishing off a plate of wings.

The woman followed Cleary and Frayne over, dropped two menus, and as they sat she asked Culp whether he wanted another beer.

Culp winked.“Keep ‘em coming.” He looked at Cleary. “I heard your investigation went to the task force. Your budget go up?”

“You want to register as a confidential informant?”

“If I was your CI, you’d be buying this lunch. I’d take that deal.”

Cleary looked at the server. “Can I get a gin and tonic, please.” She raised an eyebrow at Frayne. “Remember, you’re driving.”

“Right, I’ll have a Coke.”

Culp laughed. “You’re training him good, Janice.”

“I’m just kidding, Trent, you get whatever you want.”

Frayne nodded at the server. “Coke’s fine.”

Culp drained the last of his pint. “I bet Gawley’s going crazy trying to keep this clusterfudge out of the media.”

“You must have seen him.”

“I stay away from the office as much I can. It’s the only way to get any work done.”

Cleary half-heartedly looked over the menu. “He’s emphasizing the Toronto connection for sure. And the dead guy’s name came up in an”—she hooked air quotes—“’ongoing investigation.’”

“So? You’re in the clear.” Culp discreetly muffled a belch. “You can email a quick report and move on.”

“That’s the plan,” Cleary said. “I’m just filling in some blanks.”

Culp tapped his cellphone out of habit, checking for messages. The Legion poppy pinned to his lapel competed with the barbecue sauce on his shirt, splattered like a tiny homicide scene.

Culp was ten years younger than Cleary and officially they held the same rank, but to anyone who didn’t know it he looked like he was her superior. He certainly acted that way, which didn’t bother Cleary anymore. She was used to it, but everyone else acted that way, too, and that was bothering her more and more.

The server dropped off the drinks and took away Culp’s bones, which were museum-specimen clean. Culp was of ample girth, and not for the first time in his field of gravity did Cleary recall that back around the turn of the present century, St. Catharines was fingered as the fattest city in Canada, according to the feds. God, over twenty years ago.

Culp picked up the frosty mug and looked at Cleary. “Filling in blanks, eh. That why you want to know about this missing person?”

“Right.” She opened her notebook. “Guy named Carmine Rizzolo. Might’ve been involved in the theft of heavy equipment from construction sites.”

Culp swallowed his beer. “I remember him. Yeah, worked construction. He’d been arrested—but just for assault, lots of bar fights. There was a rumour he might have been dealing narcotics but we never got anything solid.”

Cleary let the G and T massage her throat. “And then he disappeared?”

“Off the face of the earth.”

“What’s the theory?”

“The usual—he killed himself. Jumped off the falls and the body hasn’t washed up yet.”

Frayne put down his Coke. “Seems like it would have by now.”

“They don’t always,” Culp said. “Sometimes it takes years.”

Cleary nodded. “Was he depressed?”

“If he was no one would say. We just got the usual, oh, he was such a nice guy, everything was good, blah-blah-blah. But that’s what we all said after Crandall blew his brains out.”

Cleary grimaced. Sergeant Crandall, of course, his suicide. Already ten years now. They took another drink in silence.

Frayne cleared his throat. “So, did you find his car near the falls? Rizzolo’s?”

Culp had to think about it. “No, we didn’t. That was a piece that didn’t jive with the suicide theory. We found his car near where he was working.”

Cleary pushed the menu away. “Where was that?”

Culp less discreetly masked another belch.

“New housing development out on Highway 20, in Delham. He was working at a concrete company. Pouring foundations.”

Frayne and Cleary traded a look.

“East Lofthill?” Frayne asked.

“Yep. Snobhill. Not too far from that new arena they were building around the same time.”

Cleary downed the last of her G and T and pushed away the empty glass.

“Well now, isn’t that interesting,” she said.

Media Relations Specialist Jason Ridolfi walked into Cleary’s office and sighed. “Detective, could you please talk to a reporter.”

Cleary looked up from the monitor. “We have nothing to add to the latest statement.”

“I’ve told her that ten times, could you tell her?”

“Doesn’t she speak English?”

Ridolfi snorted. “Actually, she does have an accent. I don’t know what it is, Norwegian or Danish, something like that. Kind of sounds like Björk.”

“The tennis player?”

Ridolfi cocked his head. “Who? Uh, no, the singer. Tiny, like a pixie.”

“A tiny reporter from Norway wants to know about a murder in Niagara?”

“No, I meant Björk is tiny. Well, not tiny but not tall.”

Cleary stared at Ridolfi. He shook his head and took another stab at it.

“This lady’s, uh, normal height. She’s with the local paper.”

“The Standard?”

“The Delham Free Press.”

Cleary leaned back in her chair. “And you really can’t get rid of her, this not-tiny-but-normal-height pixie?”

“She’s in the lobby.”

Cleary sighed.

“I was going to get a coffee anyway.”

*

Coming down the escalator Cleary thought, well, she looks Nordic all right, tall and blonde. Talking on her phone.

Cleary headed across the vast atrium that was the Niagara Constabulary Service’s new ground floor, all black granite and glass. A law enforcement Grand Hyatt.

“Excuse me, are you Ms. Karlsson?”

She barely moved the phone away from her mouth and kept it to her ear. “Yes, hello, Detective Cleary?”

“Yes.”

“Call you back.” And the phone was gone and she was holding out her hand. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Cleary offered a fist bump. “I don’t have anything to add to the statement that Media Specialist Ridolfi gave you.”

Karlsson nodded. “Sure, yeah, sure, sure. But there is an investigation going on here, correct?”

“Of course there is.” Cleary gestured toward a corner of the lobby away from the front desk even though the place was nearly empty. She was still getting used to the new building and finding the best places to hide. They sat at an angle to each other on a padded bench.

Karlsson looked at her notes. “The media statement referred to the Ontario Provincial Police task force.”

“That’s right.”

“Because the victim had a criminal record and had been in prison?”

Cleary found the accent a little distracting. “For many reasons.”

“But you are in charge of the investigation here?”

“Superintendent Gawley is the senior investigator.”

“But you are doing the work?”

If it was meant a joke it was a masterclass in deadpan delivery.

“I’m coordinating the investigation, yes.”

“Do you believe the victim was targeted by members of organized crime gangs? Traditional Organized Crime, or OMG, or another, non-classified group?”

“OMG?”

“Outlaw Motorcycle Groups.”

“I know what it stands for,” Cleary said. “Did you get that off the internet?”

“Is that who you believe is responsible for the murder?”

“I have no comment at this time. The investigation is ongoing.”

“Before he was killed,” Karlsson looked at her notebook, “Mr. Leonard Bouchard was going door-to-door asking people about the insulation around basement windows, is that correct?”

“No comment.”

“He entered approximately twenty houses.”

“No comment.”

“He had in his possession a metal detector.”

“No comment.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cleary saw Superintendent Gawley enter the lobby from the parking garage. He held up a hand at Cleary as he started up the escalator.

“Do you know what Mr. Bouchard was looking for?”

“No comment.”

Karlsson nodded slowly. “Detective Cleary, the people in those houses have been talking to one another, they have many questions.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Will you provide them with the answers?”

“When the investigation is complete.”

Karlsson didn’t seem to be annoyed or even surprised that she wasn’t getting anything. “Do you know when that will be?”

“I have no idea, the investigation is ongoing.”

“How worried should the people be that organized crime is moving into the area?”

Cleary leaned back and gazed at Karlsson.

“That kind of speculation doesn’t seem like something your publication usually trades in. I read it from time to time. I like the council reports—and I don’t even live in Delham.” Cleary shook her head. “That one councillor.”

“Yes, but next week we inaugurate the new council. I hope it is one that is less—what is the phrase, less of a shit show.”

Cleary chuckled. “Well, that’s candid. Is there an equivalent term in Norwegian?”

Karlsson smiled. “I am Swedish, not Norwegian, but yes—Bajsar i det blå skåpet. ‘Pooping in a blue cupboard.’ Don’t ask me to explain, because I cannot.”

Cleary smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

“The answer may be ‘no comment.’”

“What are you doing here?” Before Karlsson could answer, Cleary added, “Not here talking to me, I mean here in Niagara.”

“That’s somewhat personal, Detective.”

“Now I’m getting very curious.”

“No need for that, I’m a journalist. I was with the newspaper in Gothenburg when my husband was recruited for a job here, at Surveillance Technologies Group.”

Cleary’s eyebrow went up again. “The compound out on 20? Circled by razor wire? Hush-hush military tech?”

Karlsson shrugged. “I really cannot say, because my husband is not permitted to discuss his work. He travels often. I have much time to myself. When I heard about the opening at the Free Press I went in. They hired me. Here we are.”

Cleary said, “Must be quite an adjustment.”

“It’s an adventure, Detective. I’m learning a lot about wine.”

“Yeah, I bet you are. Okay, look, I understand you need to write a story for your paper, you can’t ignore this.”

“Certainly not.”

“But at this point there really isn’t much to say. The victim was recently released from prison, he was a Toronto resident and he had no known connection to the Niagara area.”

Karlsson tilted her head, hair falling across half her face, and frowned. “You’re just repeating the statement.”

“It’s really all I can say now. Your readers don’t need to worry and I hope you don’t speculate in ways that might cause them to.”

Karlsson pushed her hair back. “There is no need. If people don’t get enough information they themselves will speculate.”

“You don’t have to add to that. You can choose how to write your story.”

“I will report the information I have.”

“Don’t get the people worked up.”

Karlsson paused. “Have you seen what’s on Facebook and NextDoor and other such sites?”

“No, and I don’t want to.”

“If you’re hoping people will not, as you say, get worked up, this strategy has not been effective.”

“Don’t make it worse.”

Karlsson started to speak and stopped. Then she said, “When you get more information could I talk to you then?” She motioned before Cleary could reply. “I know there will be a statement, but if I could get some more from you before that it would help.”

“You want a scoop?”

“The story should be fully told by the newspaper in the place where it happened.”

“All right,” Cleary said. “I can do that. If you’ll agree not to poop in the—what was it?”

“A blue cupboard.”

“Right, that. You stick to the known facts in your reporting, and I’ll let you know when we have something. Until then, remember, this was a Toronto resident with no previous connection to Niagara.”

Karlsson smiled as she handed over her card.“All right, Detective. Deal.”

She stood and zipped her coat.

“Oh, I wonder whether you would feel comfortable mentioning something to your communications representative.”

Cleary stood as well. “Ridolfi?”

“Yes, Mr. Ridolfi. Perhaps as one colleague to another, you might suggest that his cologne is just a bit...overwhelming. I’m afraid I sneezed rather rudely.”

Cleary rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me, it’s been mentioned. Jason is, ah. Well, he’s unique.”

“I see. A pity.”

Cleary thought to herself that the Ridolfi residence probably permanently stank of Eau de Douche, but she smiled and said, “The one I pity is Mrs. Ridolfi. Have a good afternoon.”

Karlsson nodded. “And you as well.”

*

When Cleary walked back into the office Frayne stood and pointed at some papers on his desk. “You were right.”

“Men never grow up?”

“About Carmine Rizzolo.”

Cleary said, “What about him?”

“He grew up in Niagara Falls but he lived in Toronto for a few years.”

“And?”

“He worked two construction sites where equipment was stolen, including in Delham.”

“Was he questioned?”

“Everybody on the job was. Including Leonard Bouchard.”

Cleary looked at Frayne. “So they were both on the same East Lofthill job? One guy disappears soon after, the other guy turns up dead in the same neighbourhood three years later? Tell me these aren’t related.”

Frayne nodded.

Cleary glanced at the printout on Frayne’s desk, then did a double-take.

“Those stats can’t be right.”

“How so.”

Cleary drew a finger down from Carmine Rizzolo’s mugshot and rested it on the numerals. “When’s the last time you saw a construction worker who was four-feet, eleven inches tall.”

Now Frayne did the double-take. “Huh. Maybe it’s a typo. Although it would sure be easier to hide the body.”

Cleary shook her head. “No wonder he was always getting in bar fights. I mean, that would make him a mid—”

“Careful.”

“All right, a dwa—”

“No.”

Cleary rolled her eyes. “Oh for chrissake, remind me then.”

Frayne sighed. “The term today is ‘Little People,’ and by today I mean for about the last twenty years. When was your last sensitivity course?”

Cleary groaned quietly. She was fully on board with inclusivity and diversity and the rainbow coalition of modern society, but sometimes, she admitted, sometimes she missed the old days when personal pronouns weren’t appended to email signatures and not every damned thing caused someone, somewhere some offense.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Let’s see. Sensitivity and diversity training. The dollar was at par, so my then-husband and I were regulars at the Orchard Park Wegman’s—that cheap American dairy. I believe Harper was just elected PM.”

Frayne blinked. “So I was in high school. Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. The woke millennial cake is all yours, my friend. Could you imagine trying to name a TV show ‘McMillan and Wife’ today?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Ancient history.”

They both looked at the printout, then Frayne tapped it.

“Officially Rizzolo is still a missing person. Do we call the Task Force?”

“Not yet,” Cleary said. “We’ve already put a month into this. Let’s poke around a little more.”

Frayne nodded, he liked the idea and for a moment Cleary felt bad. If they held tight to the case and screwed something up it was a CLM—a Career Limiting Move. Cleary was doing it only because she was close enough to retirement she didn’t give a damn about career moves anymore. She didn’t think the Task Force was going to put any real effort into a murder way out in Niagara, so she was going to work it herself until someone forced her to stop.

She’d just have to make sure if it blew up in her face that it wouldn’t take Frayne down with her.

 

Kim was too restless to stay in the house so she got into her Range Rover and headed out. She’d always loved to drive. Not so much the QEW into Toronto—though in the middle of the night when it was empty was good—but on the back roads of Niagara. It was one of the things that she liked about being a realtor, driving to houses all over the peninsula.

Now it was late afternoon and she had nothing on for the rest of the day. There was no way she could just stay at home.

With no destination in mind she headed south towards Port, maybe check out the lake, the empty November beaches.

She usually listened to the classic rock station—she liked the afternoon DJ, a woman about her own age, mid-fifties, who told stories and had great rapport with the people who called in and who almost never knew the answers to the trivia questions. But for the past couple of months, since a certain tour had been announced that included a few performances at the casino in the Falls, she’d been listening to the country station instead. Always yearning for, yet also dreading, a certain artist’s greatest hits.

As awkward as it had been with the neighbour, Emma, Kim was glad they’d had their talk. She would never say anything about their car coming home in the middle of the night, but she was curious. The first time she’d first seen it, she thought they’d gone to a concert or something in Toronto and were just getting home, but when she saw only one person in the car she started to wonder whether something else was going on.

And then, as Emma talked about things being “difficult” and letting it slip that they were fighting a lot, and then asking about the housing market and was it really crashing and what could they get for their house, well, Kim suspected it was really about something else.

Then she was certain when Emma asked about downsizing, about a smaller house or a condo in the area. Kim could tell she was asking about a place for one person, not a young couple looking at starting a family. They already had the house for that.

She didn’t pursue it, of course. She wanted the listing, after all, and the market was still strong for nearly new houses in the area.

If it was just the usual growing pains of young people at a turning point in their lives, Kim figured they would probably work it out. But after the last two years everything seemed different. Everyone Kim knew—all the other realtors she worked with, the buyers and sellers —everyone seemed to be talking more about the short term, not mentioning the future, not much talk now about having kids or going for a promotion or planning for retirement. Which, she figured, was understandable. But it also made her laugh a little.

Welcome to my world.

Afternoon was fast headed for evening. She leaned over and flipped the passenger-side visor ninety degrees against the window, trying to block as much as the setting sun as she could as she headed south. She liked this stretch of West Side Road. Usually pretty quiet and today not another car in sight.

So much of her life she’d spent avoiding talking about getting married or having kids. She didn’t like talking about her personal life all that much anyway, but sometimes it wasn’t her decision to make. Sometimes it was the person she was with who wanted to keep it quiet, really quiet—on the down-low quiet.

Like the country singer.

There always seemed to be something else for Kim to focus on. She’d drifted through a lot of jobs before settling on real estate and when she did she found she was good at it, so that took up a lot of her time and emotional energy. A distraction from...It.

At the stop sign she took a left on Killaly then a right on Steele, mentally noting the sellers who had given up for the time being, houses where there were For Sale signs just a couple of week ago, but Kim knew they hadn’t sold.

She decided to skip the beach and took a left on Sugarloaf instead, heading for the harbour park. In the lot at the water’s edge she found a single other vehicle, an old GMC camper conversion, parked at the far eastern side. She pulled into a spot dead centre and put it in park, warming her hands on the heat from the dash vents. Across the harbour dozens of pleasure boats bobbed to their own slow beats, sailboat masts tilting randomly, glowing in the low sun.

Kim gripped the wheel and finally let herself think about what she’d been too scared to consider: did Emma or Matt, whichever one was in the car that last time, see her when she came home that night?

Would they tell the police? Would they question her again? That woman detective—it was like she could smell the guilt.

A couple of gulls swooped to the park bench across the grass, then hopped to the ground and looked at the Range Rover, hoping for discarded fries or Timbits.

Those first few notes, then the lyrics.

That voice.

Kim flinched and stared at the radio.

Here it was, the comeback hit—“Our Secret Love is Endless.”

Not that Belinda Boone had ever really gone away. She’d had her first number one when she was just nineteen, then a string of hits in the nineties—even an Oscar-nominated theme song for a movie about sharecroppers. But younger singers inevitably came along, pretty little things with nose rings and tramp stamps and crossover appeal, displacing Canada’s best known female country artist from the US charts and then the Canadian charts.

Until this spring, when out of nowhere Belinda Boone—The Belle of Beaumont, once Alberta’s second most famous export—was back on the airwaves.

More importantly she was on Spotify—one hundred million streams in three weeks. But the industry had changed. One hundred million streams? These days that’s minimum wage by the old standard. No, the real bank is in live performances, in merch. You need to make your money on the road, in tickets and hats and T-shirts, which is why the BOONE TIMES ARE BACK! tour was announced on August 5th and sold out by August 7th. Unable to understand what her intuition was telling her, Kim bought one of the $250 tickets for the Falls performance in October, wondering if it was the bargain of a lifetime or the costliest mistake she’d ever made.

She boosted the volume as her eyes welled-up.

Would she have to tell the police she was with Belinda? Would they have to question Belinda to get corroboration?

A couple of decades ago Kim went along with it. For five years she pretended to understand why Belinda didn’t want to go public. Yet as other artists came out—and actors and politicians—and their careers actually improved, Belinda still stayed in the closet. At the end Kim decided she was done. Belinda chose a prison of secrecy, Kim chose the freedom of daylight. They hadn’t spoken since.

Well, until that show last month.

Until the night before the damned dead guy was found in East Lofthill.

All these years Kim had kept their secret, and now these two detectives—especially that female one—were on the verge of bringing it all crashing down.

Her phone chirped, and then again. Two texts in a row. She distractedly swiped at the screen, then froze.

I need to see you tonight

Please

They were from Belinda Boone.

Part 5 of 10. Continued next week.