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. At 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, an ex-con with a history of thefts from construction sites. Cleary and Frayne soon determine that Bouchard had targeted only certain new homes in East Lofthill. They head out to interview Emma and Matt’s next door neighbour, Kim Stephenson, 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 another ex-con, who reveals that shortly before a planned construction site heist a few years back, one of the thieves—Carmine Rizzolo—went missing and hasn’t been seen since. Cleary and Frayne talk to detective who remembers Rizzolo going missing, a presumed suicide. But oddly, his abandoned car was found near where he worked at the time—at an East Lofthill construction site, pouring concrete foundations. Meanwhile, bored at home, realtor Kim Stephenson goes out for a drive and ends up parked near the lake in Port Robinson. On the radio she hears the new hit song by a singer that she used to date. Then her phone dings with a message from the singer—the one-time Queen of Country, Belinda Boone—urgently asking if they could meet that evening. They do, and Belinda says she’s ready to go public with their relationship. Across the border, Emma and Matt take a chance on selling some of their gold at a Buffalo pawn shop—but Matt angrily balks at being lowballed just $200 when the bars are worth closer to $2000 each. Back in Niagara, Detectives Cleary and Frayne go speak to an inmate and longtime friend of the missing Carmine Rizzolo, and learn that shortly before he disappeared he seemed to have come by quite a bit of money. Cleary and Frayne increasingly suspect that Rizzolo’s body may have been dumped in the foundation of an East Fonthill home as it was being built, where he worked. Then another former associate of Rizzolo’s comes to their attention—Steven Rossi, also a construction worker. Rossi has a lot of attitude but not much to say. Matt and Emma, meanwhile, are still looking to sell the gold they found, and decide to take a chance on a local buyer they find on the dark web. They meet Bao “Five” Nguyen in a Niagara Falls parking lot, where he agrees to buy one gold bar and says he’ll buy as many as they want to sell him. After Matt and Emma drive off, Five calls an associate to tell him that their old gang pal Carmine Rizzolo maybe really did find gold bars before he disappeared. Five tells his associate that Matt and Emma won’t be hard to rob, and asks for their home address based on their license plate number. Detective Cleary tells Detective Frayne about a late-night conversation she had with the coroner, whose opinion is that Leonard Bouchard’s neck was broken before he was smashed with a brick and his body left in East Lofthill. Then, just blocks from where the body was found, police discover a stolen Honda Civic—with a metal detector in the trunk. Returning from the dog park, Emma comes home to find Matt talking to their neighbour, the realtor Kim Stephenson, in their kitchen, asking whether this was the time to put their house on the market. Emma and Matt bitterly argue, and Emma leaves the house again with Milo. In a flashback to four years earlier, Leonard Bouchard has been instructed to kill Carmine Rizzolo, who is suspected to be a police informant. At night, Bouchard chases Rizzolo back to where Rizzolo is working in the new East Fonthill development. Rizzolo begs to be spared, and claims he stole hundreds of gold bars from a house in Lofthill. Not believing him, Bouchard kills Rizzolo and hides the body. But a police sting operation sees the whole construction theft gang arrested in the GTA, and Bouchard goes to prison for four years. As time passes, he comes to realize that Rizzolo may have been telling the truth after all, and the gold bars he was talking about may still be hidden somewhere under an East Lofthill basement foundation. When Bouchard is released from prison in September, he buys a metal detector, steals a Honda Civic in Toronto, and drives straight down to Niagara to hunt for the gold.
EPISODE 8 MARTIAL ARTS
Kim Stephenson sat at the desk in her home office, the remains of dinner pushed off to the side, looking at six pictures of herself on the computer monitor and for the first time in a long time, maybe forever, she didn’t hate what she saw. She liked it. There was something in each picture she liked.For years she’d avoided using a professional photo, not even putting one on her For Sale signs or newspaper ads—almost unheard of in the notoriously ego-driven real estate industry—and she never updated the ten-year-old headshot her brokerage insisted on using in their ads. In that case it was just one of two dozen tiny pictures that all looked the same at a glance. Generic realtor. A global look, really.
Despite their Niagara Falls kissing photo going viral, she wasn’t sure yet how she really felt about a long-term commitment to Belinda Boone. They lived in entirely different universes. Kim wasn’t about to pull up stakes and tag along on the tour bus, and Belinda wasn’t cut out for life hemmed-in by a white picket fence. But now it didn’t matter. Now Kim realized she’d spent years making something into far more than it was. She’d kept secrets, avoided other relationships, stalled her own life all for a fantasy.
And nothing bursts a fantasy bubble like actually jumping into bed with it.
She clicked on one of the pictures and it filled the screen.
Don’t you look like the cat that ate the canary, she thought.
It was too much for a real estate ad, but Kim thought she’d keep it. The photographer had done a good job.
A dog barked outside.
Kim stood and went to the window. From the second floor she could see into the next back yard. What she used to think of as the “young peoples’ yard” and now knew as Emma and Matt’s.
The light snow that fell the night before was dented with paw-prints and occasional yellow spots. Matt threw a big piece of rope that was tied in a knot. Their dog Milo chased it but when he brought it back Matt was on his phone and not paying attention.
The house was Emma and Matt’s for now, but after the fight they’d had it might be on the market soon.
Kim surprised herself by not immediately calculating the commission in her head. But then she did wonder, what if they both then bought condos? Three good commissions.
Kim could see Emma as a client, but maybe not Matt.
The dog barked again.
Matt was still on the phone.
The way he complained about Lofthill, Kim couldn’t imagine him staying in the area. But she thought Emma might. The way they’d been fighting so much lately Kim couldn’t picture them remaining together. Too bad, she thought. The past couple of years had been tough, maybe the toughest on young people.
But hey, life is timing, you’ve got to roll with it and come back stronger. So...two good commissions.
Matt ended his phone call and went back into the house not even looking at the dog. The back light went off.
A moment later Milo barked. And barked.
The light went back on and the door opened. The dog ran in and Kim knew it was Emma. She couldn’t see from where she was standing, but she knew.
Just like she knew that their house would be up for sale before New Year’s.
Detective Sergeant Janice Cleary looked around the restaurant approvingly. “You want a good Chinese restaurant, it has to have imperial, jade, or garden in the name. A good pho place has to be a pun.”
Detective Constable Trent Frayne put down his teacup. “I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
“Look at you with your own opinions, am I losing my authority?”
“I’m just saying I’ve been to some good Chinese places that don’t have any of those words in their names.”
“But this has the best pho,” Cleary said. “Do you know what this place used to be?”
“How do you know it wasn’t always pho?”
“You can tell by the building, this was some kind of chain, goes back at least to the eighties.” She looked around the room, at the booths and tables and chairs, the glass bricks around the front door. The artwork was all Vietnamese but the architecture was weirdly Art Deco, or Faux Deco. “There are at least two former KFCs in St. Catharines that are now something else—know what they are?”
Frayne shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Chinese take-out and an animal hospital. Come on, you have to be more observant. Old Pizza Huts are easy to spot, too.”
“This pho is good.”
It was almost nine, closing time at Lofthill’s best Vietnamese restaurant, and the place was empty except for Cleary and Frayne in a window booth, a lone Asian customer on the other side of the room, and the waitress and the cook. A diminishing river of headlights flowed in both directions on Highway 20.
Cleary said, “Let’s see the map again.”
Frayne pulled out the single piece of paper he’d printed out that afternoon and placed it on the table. It had all the East Lofthill houses marked in the same green, red, yellow, and orange as on the map they’d perhaps unwisely tacked-up on a pristine wall in the Niagara Constabulary Service’s shiny new headquarters a few weeks earlier.
Clearly tapped the map. “So we can be pretty sure that four or five years ago Carmine Rizzolo left something in one of these houses.”
“But do we know that?”
“They weren’t houses then, of course, they were just holes in the ground. Where the streets have no name. You like that song?”
“Sure,” Frayne said, “I like the oldies. Did they have stereo yet?”
Cleary mock glared at him.
“That’s good kid, you’re coming along. So no, we don’t know that for sure. But it’s what Leonard Bouchard believed Rizzolo did, because he came looking for it and then got his neck broken and head caved in for the effort.”
Frayne pursed his lips. “And Bouchard didn’t know exactly where it was. He just knew it was in one of the foundations in the general area. Or maybe underneath.”
Cleary nodded. “And Bouchard wasn’t the only one chasing this thing. Someone else from that gang knew it was there—or believed it was. They tailed Bouchard? Confronted him?”
“Not Michael DeLuca, because he’s in jail. That leaves our other tiny friend, Steven Rossi—who just happens to be out here at another Niagara construction site.”
Clearly fiddled with the map. “Rossi and Rizzolo were working together four, five years ago. They stole something valuable and Rizzolo hid it on site. Bouchard gets paroled in September and the first thing he does is buy a metal detector and head down here in that stolen Civic. Did he find what he was looking for? Either way, he’s dead and dumped on a new construction site.
Frayne pointed past Cleary. “Our twenty-four-hour gym witness over there saw a small car stop at the dump site, could have been Rossi’s Fiat.”
“Could’ve been for sure. But in all these years Rossi never went looking for it on his own. Why not?”
“He didn’t really believe it was there. Or maybe he did and didn’t find it.”
Cleary gave a little groan. “So who told Leonard Bouchard where this thing was? What’s the connection to Carmine Rizzolo?”
Frayne looked at their reflection in the window for a moment. “There was nothing in the file about Bouchard ever working with Rizzolo. This is turning into Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
“It’s the connection of known associates,” Cleary said, “a legitimate crime investigation technique.”
“That sounds very Task Force.”
“Doesn’t it just.”
Frayne turned the map around and traced a street. “So, why isn’t the Task Force interested in this?”
“Probably because there’s nothing here. There is no there there.”
“What?”
“It’s just such bullshit,” Cleary said. “It sounds exactly like some crazy story that gets told in prison. Buried treasure—but no one knows exactly where it is. Someone’s going to go dig it up when they get out. Blah-blah-blah.”
The server came to take their empty bowls. She was in her twenties, maybe Vietnamese but probably Chinese, and if she had an accent it was Toronto. “You want anything else?” She motioned at the empty beer bottles. “Another round?”
Cleary nodded no. “Thanks but just the bill.”
The server smiled— all business. Anxious to close up as soon as these two and the other guy left, though Cleary was in no hurry.
She poured the last of the tea from the pot. “The rumour angle is what makes the most sense. Rizzolo disappears, there are stories. Maybe he pulled a job just before he disappeared, maybe he screwed over his boss, maybe it was an inside job, he skimmed too much, maybe he did jump over the falls and the body hasn’t washed up yet.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“That’s how crazy rumours get started.”
Frayne shrugged. “So why would Steven Rossi kill Bouchard?”
“Could be anything. Could be personal. Maybe he was waiting for him to get out of prison. Maybe he just happened to see him in his own backyard—at some strip club. Lofthill and the Falls are pretty close.”
Frayne rubbed his chin. “Even more maybes.”
“That’s all we’ve got.”
“So, is this as far as we can go?”
“Another maybe,” Cleary said. “We could ask Superintendent Gawley if we could run an undercover investigation on Steven Rossi, get some cellphone history. Find someone close, see if they could get anything out of him about Bouchard.”
“That might work.”
Cleary smiled sadly. “It could take years and cost millions of lives.”
Frayne raised an eyebrow. “From some World War Two movie?”
“Maybe, but I know it from Animal House.”
“Of course.”
A loud screech from the street. A car trying to cross left onto 20 from the fast-food place next door was almost T-boned by a pickup. The drivers yell at each other for a few seconds, then both squeal off.
Cleary sighed. “We could give all this to the Task Force and let them run with it. I mean, all these guys really were connected to heavy equipment thefts—that’s why Bouchard went to prison. They were probably all involved in other crimes, too. The Task Force already has their guys working undercover, probably a lot. And they don’t have our budget issues.”
The server came back with a leather folder held open by a couple of candies and asked whether they needed the machine she had in her hand.
Frayne reached for his cell. “I got it,” and held his phone above the machine until it beeped.
The server smiled. “Thanks. Take your time finishing up,” and walked back to the kitchen.
Cleary swallowed a sip of tea. “Someone might say something. Bouchard’s murder will come up, someone will talk about it. The file coordination team might be able to put it together.”
“Sounds like we’re giving up,” Frayne said.
“We’re prioritizing our scheduled hours in the most effective manner.”
“You do read the Superintendent’s memos.”
“I am bothered by one thing, though.”
Frayne nodded. “What’s that?”
“If the same guy killed Bouchard and Rizzolo, and it’s in pretty much the same area—.” She paused.
“Which looks like is what happened.”
“Then we keep circling back. How come he got rid of Rizzolo’s body but left Bouchard’s out to be found?”
Frayne thought for a moment. “He’s getting older, sloppy. Maybe lazy.”
“Maybe, but you don’t age that much in just four years.”
Cleary gave another sigh. They looked at each other as if it was meeting adjourned.
***
Stepping out into the empty parking lot the cold night air hit them in the face and they both bundled up a little tighter.
Cleary looked out at the traffic, then at Frayne. “I wish this investigation had a better ending for you.”
“It’s fine,” Frayne said.
They stopped on either side of their car.
Cleary looked over the roof. “You do good work, Frayne. I can recommend you get reassigned some place that won’t be a dead end for your career.”
Too quickly he said, “No, that’s okay.” He paused, then spoke a little more slowly. “I just mean, I’m still learning a lot and I’m not really ready for something else.”
“You should talk to your wife, this is your career, it affects you both. You don’t want to get stuck with a reputation that holds you back.”
Frayne shrugged. “Okay, we’ll talk about it.”
Cleary put a hand on the door handle and felt the cold. She looked down 20 past the new plaza, and the other new plaza, and wondered how long it would take before the entire stretch of highway was lined with squat office buildings, condos, strip malls, all the way to the 406. And beyond. All the way to the canal. And on the other side, the sprawl was moving this way.
The door lock clicked but she didn’t open it right away.
She was tired, no doubt about that, and the short days and long nights were getting to her more than they ever had, so maybe that’s why she was thinking about slowing down. Maybe she should get Frayne hooked up with another detective in Major Crimes, although she couldn’t think of one who’d be good for him at the moment, and get herself a desk job for a few more years until retirement.
She pulled the door open and got in the car.
Retirement. That was the one R-word she never wanted to use.
Frayne started the car. “It’s going to take a minute to get heat.”
“That’s fine,” Cleary said. She remembered Dr. Geffen, the coroner, who had to be closer to seventy than sixty-five, telling her years ago that the day you start thinking about retirement you’ve already done it. You’re just going through the motions.
She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. She didn’t think she was just going through the motions, and not finding out who killed Leonard Bouchard was hitting her harder than she’d realized.
It was making her mad.
Frayne turned down the fan and put the car in gear. “So, straight home?”
“Might as well.”
He started to back out of the spot and Cleary said, “Hang on.”
Frayne put it back in park.
Cleary pointed across the roadway to the tower of signs for businesses in a strip plaza.
“Martial Arts.”
Frayne said, “Yeah?”
“Someone who did a lot of martial arts could break someone’s neck, couldn’t they?”
“I don’t know if they teach that specifically, but I imagine anyone really into it could, yeah.”
“Weren’t we talking to somebody who said they did martial arts?”
Frayne thought for a minute and then actually snapped his fingers. “Guy in the first house Bouchard skipped, said Bouchard didn’t even knock on the door. Said he was home all day and went to Jujitsu that night.”
“That’s a martial art, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. You want to talk to him again?”
Cleary looked at her watch. “Let’s do that first thing in the morning.”
“All right, sounds good.”
Frayne checked his rearview and saw their backup lights reflecting from the restaurant’s windows.
***
Seated at his table on the far wall, Bao “Five” Nguyen watched the two cops pull out of the lot and head east on 20. He’d clocked them as soon as they walked in. Five had a sixth sense about cops, but this big guy, the younger one, was easy to spot. As he walked by Five on the way to the washroom his jacket flapped open enough to reveal the holster. And Five could tell he deferred to the older lady, showed her respect, and it wasn’t because it was his mother.
This was Five’s first visit to Pho Geddaboutit, and he thought the food was okay if basic. Total coincidence that the cops came in at the same time. He had no idea what they were talking about, what was going on with the piece of paper with all the coloured blocks on it, and he didn’t care. He was in town on business and they were delaying it. When they finally left he swiped at his phone and made the call.
Five minutes later a black Fiat 500 pulled up in front of the restaurant. Five politely said goodnight to the nice Korean-Canadian girl and headed out. Steven Rossi was behind the wheel.
A few minutes later they were driving slowly along one of East Lofthill’s newer residential streets, almost all the houses framed in Christmas lights, and quite a few with decorated trees glowing on the other side of living room windows. People are so dumb, thought Five. Keeping your shades up like that at night, like some Hudson’s Bay display window. Thieves, come and have a good look at our merch.
He peered out at the house numbers. “Yo, Tino, I see why you didn’t know where it was, with the numbers on these shitboxes all the same. Like your shitbox car.”
“We could have taken your car.”
“Ride as fine as mine would stick out around here.”
“You sure it’s your ride that would stick out?”
Five smiled. He figured there were probably a few Vietnamese families in the development, or South Asian for sure. The neighbours would be nice, very polite. To their faces anyway. He wondered if that’s the way it had been for Rossi’s Italian immigrant grandparents. Probably. Just in working-class rowhouses instead of these over-priced bungalows.
Rossi drummed on the steering wheel. “I knew Carmine Rizzolo was a moron but I didn’t think he’d stash that much out here. I still can’t believe he even scored that kind of take.”
Five laughed. “A moron man of mystery.”
They turned a corner.
In fact, Rossi had been on this street before, but there was no need for Five to know that just yet.
Five pointed to the right. “There it is.”
The Mini was in the driveway.
“Let’s go get us some gold.”
Episode 9 of 10. Next week: The finale.
