The Ambitious City (48 page)

“Even though he was still smiling at her?” MacNeice needed to ask the question.

She sighed and put both hands on her knees. “When I was a child growing up in Wales, my grandfather raised chickens—mostly for eggs, but also for dinner. I was often in the barnyard when he chopped off their heads … You can see where I’m going, of course. Their bodies would run around crazily before dropping and the eyes in their severed heads would blink up at me and their little beaks would open and close … but they were most definitely dead.”

“Very vivid.”

“Death is vivid … and the dinners were divine.” She smiled and stood up. Teatime was over.

V
ERTESI AND
W
ILLIAMS
were removing the images from the whiteboards when MacNeice walked in. They wanted to know how Aziz was, and then they wanted to know whether this would scare her away from police work.

“Quite the opposite, I think.”

Vertesi stuffed the images and Aziz’s torn clothing into a banker’s box to be forwarded to the inquiry, and he and Williams rolled the whiteboards to the storage room. Ryan and MacNeice sat in silence, watching as they disappeared from view.

As MacNeice turned to his desk to write up the meeting with the coroner, the ground-floor admin clerk appeared with her cart. She said, “This came in for you by courier this morning, sir.” She handed him a box and continued down the corridor.

It was neatly wrapped, and above his name and title it was sealed with a label that said
KT COURIERS
. MacNeice stood up sharply, put the box on his desk and stepped back.

“You okay, sir?” Ryan said, spinning around in his chair.

“I am. Though I feel as if I’ve just seen a ghost.”

“What’s up?” Williams asked as he and Vertesi returned.

“Dance just sent me a present.” He pointed to the package on his desk.

“Sweet Jesus, what now? Should we be calling the bomb squad and evacuating the building?” Vertesi said.

“No, that’s not his style. He was an up-close-and-personal killer. Anybody got a camera?”

“I’ve got my point ‘n’ shoot here, sir. It does a decent video too,” Ryan said, reaching into his knapsack.

“Video it is.” He waited for the nod from Ryan, then checked his watch. “The time is 5:18 p.m. Package arrived in the office mail distribution. Has been in the mailroom—I’m reading the department stamp—since 9:34 this morning. Dropped off likely by William Dance himself.”

He took scissors to the top edge of the box and cut through the duct tape that surrounded it, leaving one side to act as a hinge.

“That suggests he would have spoken to at least two people: one to ask for the mail room and the person at the desk who took the package and signed for it,” Vertesi said, pulling up a chair.

MacNeice spoke in a monotone for the video. “I’m taking off the KT label that reads ‘DS MacNeice, best wishes from your S.S. friend,’ which I assume is a reference to Hitler’s S.S.”

“That or your secret Santa,” Williams deadpanned.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Vertesi said, shaking his head.

“No,” Williams countered. “I subscribe to the dictum ‘No gag goes unspoken.’ ”

“Right. So the meaning is open to interpretation,” MacNeice said, attempting to focus his team. He put the label on the desk and lifted the lid. “Inside there’s an envelope addressed ‘MacNeice.’ ” He took it out and placed it next to the label. “Underneath there’s
a memory stick on a black lanyard, a DVD and a handwritten address card for 8 Harold Crescent with a key taped to it. Below, a folded card with handwriting in capital letters—’A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS.’ And finally, a packet of photographs held together with a rubber band.”

He passed the memory stick to Williams and the DVD to Ryan, then picked up the envelope, opened it and began to read the letter. Ryan stopped recording.

“Spreadsheets, sir,” Ryan said, staring at his screen. “They’re titled ‘Racial Projections Based on Empirical Evidence,’ and they seem to be indicating, by race or country of origin, how this country will … in fifty years … let me scroll down to the conclusion … Here we are—that the country will be left with a population that’s only eighteen percent white, and twelve percent of those people will be in the Maritimes.”

“Anything else on it?”

“There’s a source list of his references and some kind of graphic modelling, province by province, as to how it’s going to happen. Ontario and British Columbia lead the way, followed by Quebec, Alberta and so on. Whoa, he’s even got a default. It says, ‘If climate changes continue unabated, then Nunavut and the Northwest Territories will enter the equation and hasten the decline of the
already small white populations in those regions, providing a differential reduction of 1.5 years on the forecast.’ This guy was intense, man. Even if he wasn’t a homicidal freak, he would still be a freak.”

The clerk appeared at the cubicle again, looking as if she didn’t want the task of delivering these particular four white business envelopes. She hesitated, not sure which detective she should hand them to.

“What are they, Carol?” MacNeice asked.

“SIU preliminary inquiry schedule, sir …”

“Give them to me, thank you.” MacNeice looked at the names on the envelopes: DS MacNeice, DIs Williams, Vertesi and Aziz. Rather than passing them out, he tossed them on the desk.

“The memory stick is a diary of his attacks,” Williams said as he scrolled down the document, “right up till last night. It ends with some gibberish about the Knights Templar having two hundred years to do what he’s accomplished in less than a month, and that is, quote, ‘to create a legendary movement intended to set things right.’ ”

“Knights Templar … KT Couriers,” MacNeice said, glancing over at the label.

“What’s in the letter, boss?”

MacNeice handed it to Vertesi and picked up the package of photographs. There were several scouting trip photos of Taaraa and Samora. Taaraa at the hospital, crossing the parking lot, walking along the street with Wendy Little, coming and going from the house at 94 Wentworth; Samora arriving at the Burger Shack, serving food and drink across the counter, at the end of her shift walking with a tray of food and her books to the breakwater where she would die. A piece of blank card separated these from images of the killings themselves—hastily shot close-ups of their staring faces in the dying moments of their lives, and two each of the wounds.

Then came another separating card, this one with a handwritten note:
Close Calls
. Research photos of Lea Nam running, stretching or leaving the gym after her workout, and several of Narinder Dass getting out of a Mercedes, walking to an elevator in an underground parking lot, or entering a building.

MacNeice checked his watch. “After the press conference, Montile, get over to”—he picked up the address card with the key and handed it to him—“18 Harold Crescent. I assume it was where he was living. Call Forensics and have them follow you there.”

“No problem.” Williams put the key and card in his jacket pocket.

T
WO WEEKS PASSED
quickly. Far from retreating back to academe, Aziz took the plunge and arranged for her stuff to be moved back from Ottawa. Her old apartment was still empty, so she moved back in, grateful for once that the economy had been slow, especially in Dundurn. They kept her away from the media, which continued pushing the story of William Dance until at last it began losing ground to the upcoming launch event for the Museum of the Great Lakes. By coincidence, the launch and the inquiry were on the same day.

Wallace and Dr. Richardson had their interviews the day before MacNeice and his detectives were to be called. Though it was neither requested or required, the mayor had expressed his support of MacNeice and his investigative team by way of a written deposition, placing particular emphasis on the heroism of DI Aziz.

MacNeice was to go last, after Vertesi, Williams and Aziz herself. He looked at his watch—11:57 a.m.—and began making his way to the inquiry room two floors above. There was a uniformed
officer standing at ease outside the door. “It won’t be long, sir. So far they’ve been sticking to the schedule.”

MacNeice nodded his thanks and walked over to the windows that overlooked the parking lot, to see if he could spot anything interesting in the trees. One minute before noon, the door opened and a shaken Aziz made her way to the stairs without even noticing MacNeice standing there. The uniform was called inside and came out a minute later to escort him in.

Before he followed he glanced back out to the treeline of the parking lot. Two crows were passing overhead; one dropped down to land on a young gingko tree, the branches swaying wildly under the bird’s weight. MacNeice smiled.

Tent cards provided the names of each board member: Dorothy Peterson, Elizabeth Wells-Carpenter, Alice Yeung, David Hruby and Robert Crawford. He guessed that all three women were in their early to mid-forties. They were dressed in grey or black business suits, with only Yeung showing any colour—a jade blouse. The two men wore dark blue suits and looked like insurance brokers. A court stenographer sat behind her computer at the end of the table near the windows. Her face was a study in benign neutrality. In front of each board member was a notepad, a pencil, and a bulldog-clipped report that he assumed contained the details of the Dance case; each also had a glass of water and a cup of tea or coffee. They appeared relaxed and self-confident, as if it would be evident to any observer that they were the right people to tackle the task at hand.

Robert Crawford smiled broadly and introduced himself as chair. The pleasantries continued for almost ten minutes and included acknowledgement of MacNeice’s service record and his many commendations. Crawford cited the documents of support provided by Chief Pathologist Mary Richardson and Deputy Chief Wallace, as well as the affidavit from the mayor. He spoke about the need to
ensure that the facilities of all police divisions be assessed for their security and that deficiencies be corrected immediately where found wanting. He acknowledged MacNeice’s personal courage in entering the basement and confronting William Dance—and that’s where the flattery stalled.

The woman on the far left, Dorothy Peterson, spoke first. “DS MacNeice, why did you enter that basement alone?” She smiled, he thought, genuinely.

“I could have told Detective Inspector Williams to take the basement, but I didn’t. The fact was, we had no time to ponder what to do; we had to trust our intuition and act swiftly. Dance set it up that way.”

She was making notes without looking up. “Explain what you mean by ‘Dance set it up that way.’ ”

“He wanted to die after he’d killed his last victim. If DI Aziz hadn’t kicked out at him, that’s exactly how it would have ended.”

“You’re certain about that?” She put down her pencil and looked directly at him.

MacNeice glanced over at the transcriber, who was also looking at him and waiting. He didn’t answer.

“Detective?” Crawford prodded.

“Yes.”

David Hruby took it from there. “We’ve been told by the pathologist that your shot was fatal.”

“It was intended to be.”

“I’m sure it was. Why then, was it necessary to fire twice more?”

“Necessary?”

“Yes. If you had already killed Dance, why was he shot a second and third time?” Hruby’s tone was condescending.

“Once for Taaraa Ghosh and once for Samora Aploon.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” Hruby’s face flushed.

“Let me answer the question I think you’re asking. No, this
wasn’t an execution.”

“Was it not?” Dorothy Peterson asked.

“It was not an execution. My shot killed Dance as he lunged with his knife. If I hadn’t shot him, DI Aziz would be dead.”

“But you say that he set it up that way—effectively you executed him in the act,” Peterson said.

“I told him twice to drop the weapon and he didn’t. I shot him; I didn’t execute him.”