The Poisoned Pawn Page 19

  Apiro stood up awkwardly. He bent towards her, patting her hair. She put her arms around his waist and sobbed. Minutes passed before she spoke again.

  “He treated them kindly at first. When he finally attacked them, they didn’t know what to make of it. Some of them believed that this is how adults show their love. They were so confused. And those who fought back …” Her voice trailed off.

  “What happened to them?”

  She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes, smearing mascara across her cheeks.

  “He passed them over to other pedophiles on staff. Men who were not quite so patient. Violent men, who beat the children into submission. We were trapped there, you know, all of us. We couldn’t have visitors. Our parents weren’t allowed to come and see us. We were permitted to write letters, but I am sure no one saw them. We all said the same thing: please, please, let me come home. When no one came to get me, I thought that either my parents no longer loved me or my letters were being intercepted. My mother and father were good people. I believed they would do something to stop these men. And so when I was fourteen, almost fifteen, I tried to run away from the school, to get back home. To tell my parents what was going on.”

  She began to cry again, placing her head in her hands.

  Apiro sat down again. He pulled his chair beside hers and patted her on the back. “Maria, some burdens are too heavy to carry alone. You don’t have to tell me, but I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  She nodded. She spoke softly, her voice breaking.

  “Rey Callendes came looking for me. He found me on the highway. I was waiting by the overpass for a ride. He told me he would take me back to my family in Havana if that’s what I really wanted. I believed him. I got into the van. I was so excited to be going home; I can’t tell you how happy I was. But he drove off the highway and down a deserted road deep in the woods. He pushed me out of the van into the dark. He knew I could not survive more than a few days without water. He said he would tell my parents that I died in the mountains, running away. And then he drove off, leaving me alone in a forest full of wild animals and snakes.”

  “How did you manage to survive?” asked Apiro, stiff with anger. No one will ever hurt her again, he vowed to himself. I swear it on my life. An oath to a god I don’t believe in. In the name of the child we can never have.

  “A tobacco worker from the valley below was hunting jutia a few days later. He found me. I had fainted from exhaustion and dehydration. I think he was disappointed to find out that I wasn’t a tree rat. He managed to rouse me and gave me water. He took me to the tobacco huts in the valley. I hid in the bottom of his cart on the way; I was frightened of seeing anyone from the school. The workers were kind to me. They shared what little food they had. I was covered with insect bites and scratches from stumbling around in the woods. I was nearly frantic with fear.

  “I begged them not to tell anyone I was there. A few days later, one of the men took me to a botella where they waited to make sure I was safe until I got a ride into Havana. But when I calmed down I realized my parents would never believe me. They were very religious, and they trusted the Church completely. I was afraid they would send me back to the school again, the way they sent me back before. I knew if that happened, Rey Callendes would kill me to cover up his lies. And so I came to the hospital to find you. I trusted you because you had been my doctor after Rodriguez hurt me. You had always been so kind to me. And I needed somewhere to hide.”

  Apiro’s heart sank. “This wasn’t the reason you wanted the surgery, was it, Maria? Because if it was, I have committed a terrible wrong. One that can never be undone.”

  “Not at all, Hector. Don’t be silly.” Maria smiled at him, wiping her eyes. “I’m happy with what I am now, believe me. I am who I was always supposed to be. But if I had a gun, I swear to God, I would kill that priest myself. Imagine, leaving a young child in the woods to be torn apart by animals. And then telling my parents I had died.”

  “Some things are too terrible to forgive.”

  Apiro tried not to imagine her terror in the deep woods, blind in the dark, hearing the scuffling of forest creatures. “But you must tell Ricardo what happened, so he can charge Callendes with this. The attempted murder of a child to cover up sexual abuse: these are special circumstances that will guarantee he faces the firing squad.”

  “Oh, Hector, I can’t tell Ricardo what happened to me. Or he will know who I really am.”

  FORTY - FOUR

  While O’Malley spoke with Dr. Hollands, Celia Jones contacted Andrew Britton to explain what was going on. Ramirez waited, trying to be patient, but found himself frequently checking his watch.

  “Andrew will be here shortly,” Jones confirmed. “He wants to make some inquiries about the SIU investigation before he heads over. We can wait for him in my office.”

  A few minutes later, O’Malley knocked on her door. “Good news, Inspector. Ralph Hollands says there won’t be a travel advisory given all this new information.”

  “Thank you,” said Ramirez. He exhaled, relieved. “Sincerely.”

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” said O’Malley. “But you’re in good hands with Celia. I’m just down the hall if you need me for anything.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Andrew Britton called up from reception. As he entered Jones’s office, he shook the snow from his hair. He removed his rubber overshoes from his black leather loafers before he sat down.

  For the second time that day, Ramirez and Jones listened to the small tape spin through Ellis’s confession.

  “I need to go over the contents of this recording with you, Inspector Ramirez. The admissibility of this confession is going to be crucial. I hear Detective Ellis is going to be picked up soon, is that right, Celia?”

  “There’s already a patrol car at his house, Andrew. There’s been one there all week, because of the media. They’re waiting for Tactical Squad before they go in, in case Mike has his gun with him. But the constable O’Malley just spoke to says that no one has come or gone from his house today, except for someone delivering a prescription about an hour ago. My God, I still can’t believe Mike did this.”

  Britton shook his head. “I know. I worked with him on a few files. I always thought he was a good cop. But two million dollars is a lot of incentive. We’d better get started; I know the inspector has a flight to catch. Inspector Ramirez, I understand that you taped Mike Ellis’s confession on December 31. Where exactly were you when you did that?”

  Britton pulled a notebook with a hard black cover out of his leather briefcase. He began to jot notes in it with an expensivelooking gold pen.

  “In an interview room in the Havana police headquarters.” Apiro had actually done the taping, but Ramirez didn’t think it mattered. “What are his chances of being released on bail?”

  “Slim,” Britton answered. “It’s not easy to get someone out on a murder charge at the best of times, although it happens. The court will look at whether he’s a flight risk, and whether he poses a danger to the community. They will also be mindful of the fact that, as a policeman, any time he spends in remand could put his life at risk. And they’ll look at the strength of the case. That’s why this confession is so important.

  “We can’t do anything about that clerk of yours who died, or Nicole Caron; they died in your country, not ours. As for Hillary Ellis, we don’t have anything linking Mike Ellis to her death, except for those stupid printouts that June Kelly gave Chief O’Malley. I’d be laughed out of court if I tried to use those. I don’t know what your laws are in Cuba, Inspector, but up here, there’s case law that says if you plan to kill one person, and kill another by mistake, it’s first-degree murder.”

  “Yes, it’s the same in my country.”

  “If your pathologist confirms there’s fluoroacetate in those birth control pills, you might be able to charge Ellis with the deaths in Cuba and try to bring him back for trial. Canada would want assurances he wouldn’t be
executed before they’d consider it. But we can’t do anything about that right now. Not without a whole lot more evidence.”

  Not likely a prosecution the Ministry of the Interior would wish to pursue, thought Ramirez. Tourists didn’t like to hear of other tourists being murdered, whatever the cause.

  “I thought you were going to charge Señor Ellis with murdering his wife?” Ramirez asked.

  “We have to do this in stages. Until we get copies of those laboratory reports from Cuba, Steve Sloan’s murder is the only count we can allege. And it’s pretty weak. Motive and opportunity, yes, but we still have to prove he did it.”

  “What do you mean, it’s weak?” said Jones. “We have a taped confession, for God’s sake.”

  “The Special Investigations Unit already cleared Ellis once, remember? His confession is the only thing that ties him to Sloan’s murder. All the other evidence SIU collected contradicts it.”

  “But that’s because he covered it up. What about the gun?” Jones asked. “According to what Mike told Inspector Ramirez, he switched guns with Sloan. If he still has Sloan’s gun, that would prove he did it, wouldn’t it?”

  “Mike was issued a Glock when he was promoted. I checked that before I came over here. We don’t know what happened to the gun he had before. It was seized by SIU for testing. They say it was returned to the Rideau Regional Police in case they needed it as evidence, but there’s no record of it now.”

  Ramirez wasn’t surprised the gun was missing. Lots of guns had walked out of the Havana exhibit room.

  “He made no mention of removing any evidence when he spoke to me,” said Ramirez. “I think he would have said something.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Jones. “This is making me nervous. So the confession really is all we have. What happens if Mike gets bail?”

  “Celia, I think we have enough to hold him on Steve Sloan’s murder while we gather more information. And we can probably convict him, too, if we can find a way to get Dr. Apiro up here to testify at his preliminary hearing and trial. If your government will cooperate by letting him come to Canada, that is, Inspector.”

  “Testify about what?” Ramirez asked the prosecutor. He wondered what Apiro could possibly say about a murder investigation that had nothing to do with him.

  “You refer to Dr. Apiro’s expert opinion on that tape,” Britton said. “It’s pretty obvious that Ellis only confessed because you told him that Dr. Apiro was certain those scars on his face were self-inflicted. Without Dr. Apiro here to verify his opinion at trial, it’s all hearsay. Our court won’t accept it as evidence. And Irv Birenbaum will never consent to it being admitted if he can’t cross-examine the expert on his opinion.”

  “Do you think Irv will act for Mike?” asked Jones.

  “They’re good friends, Celia. I would think so.”

  “Is this Irv a defence lawyer?” Ramirez asked.

  “Best in town. He acts for all the police who get charged,” Britton explained. “Even on disciplinary matters. And he’s known for getting them off. He cross-examines every witness for days until they’re practically begging him to tell them what he wants them to say so they can finally get off the witness stand.”

  “I am afraid there was no expert report,” said Ramirez, frowning. “It is a technique I often use with tourists who I know can’t read Spanish. I use an official-looking document and tell them it’s an expert opinion, to encourage them to talk. Hector Apiro never examined Señor Ellis. I made it up. I think I may have used an office-supplies order form that day.” He shrugged helplessly.

  “Then we have a serious problem,” Britton said tightly, clicking his gold pen repeatedly.

  FORTY - FIVE

  “Did I do something wrong?” Inspector Ramirez asked Celia Jones. “In my country, there is nothing to prevent the use of trickery when it comes to questioning suspects.”

  “It’s a little different here,” Jones said. “We have a Charter of Rights that gives suspects the right against self-incrimination. But I think Andrew may be overstating it. You’re a Cuban police officer. You made it very clear to Mike that you had no jurisdiction over him or his offences. He spoke to you voluntarily. He never once asked for a lawyer.”

  “Look, let me get us some coffee,” said Britton. “It’s going to take us some time to think this through. What do you take in it? Milk or cream?”

  Rum, Ramirez thought, but he doubted the Canadian police had any to spare from their exhibit room. “Cream if you have it.”

  “I’ll go with you, Andrew,” said Jones.

  She returned a few minutes later with three orange-and-white paper cups in a cardboard holder. Ramirez looked at the lid on the tiny container of coffee creamer she handed him. “Edible oil substitute,” it said. Ramirez wondered what he’d be ingesting, what substance had been substituted for edible oil. He pulled off the lid and poured it in his coffee.

  Andrew Britton swung the door closed behind him. He threw some sandwiches covered in plastic wrap on the table.

  “I have a list of things I need to ask you, questions we can anticipate the defence raising at Ellis’s bail hearing. Here, have a sandwich. They’re chicken, from the vending machine downstairs. Air Ontario doesn’t serve food on its flights anymore. You won’t have time for dinner.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Thank you. Yes, my flight leaves this evening. But I have yet to hear from Corporal Tremblay of the RCMP whether I will be bringing Rey Callendes with me.” Ramirez looked at his watch. It was almost five, and Tremblay hadn’t called.

  “Inspector Ramirez is supposed to be escorting a prisoner back to Cuba,” explained Jones. “That priest in the newspaper. The one who was arrested at the airport last week with a laptop full of child porn. Do you have Corporal Tremblay’s phone number? I’ll call him for you, Ricardo, while you and Andrew talk.”

  Ramirez handed her Tremblay’s business card and she walked into the hall. A few minutes later she returned.

  “Good news, Inspector. Corporal Tremblay says it’s no problem. He was waiting to hear from Justice. The Minister has agreed to return Rey Callendes to Cuba for prosecution. Tremblay will bring him here and turn him over to you within the hour. He said to tell you he’ll bring the laptop with him. He also says he has an affidavit for you to swear. I can do that for you; I’m a commissioner of oaths.”

  “If he needs it notarized, I have my seal in my briefcase,” said Britton. “I’m assuming a squad car can take you and the prisoner to the airport from here?”

  “Shouldn’t be an issue,” Jones assured him. “Worse comes to worst, Charlie Pike’s around.”

  Ramirez was relieved to know he had accomplished at least one of his objectives. He was still trying to figure out how to ask Celia Jones to swear a false statement before he left. The more he got to know her, the less likely it seemed she would agree.

  Ramirez removed the plastic wrap from his sandwich, thinking how casually Canadians dealt with meat. He had eaten chicken only twice the entire year before. At home, a chicken sandwich would be cause for celebration. But there were no smiles on the faces around the table. Including his.

  “Did you give Ellis his right to legal counsel?” Britton asked, his pen poised over his lined notebook, his own sandwich untouched.

  “He had no right to counsel in Cuba, Señor Britton,” Ramirez responded. He took a small bite. It didn’t taste like chicken, and the substance around it didn’t quite taste like bread. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

  “None?”

  “Only at trial,” Ramirez said. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and took a sip of the lukewarm bitter coffee.

  “Did he ever ask for a lawyer?”

  “In that interview, no.”

  “What does that mean? Was there another interview that I don’t know about?”

  Jones explained. “Mike was initially arrested for sexually assaulting and murdering a young boy, Andrew. Arturo Montenegro. That’s why I was sent down there by O’Malley. Inspector
Ramirez was investigating the crime. But it turned out that Mike was framed by one of the detectives in the Major Crimes Unit. A man named Rodriguez Sanchez.”

  “A detective in your own section? And this interview that you referred to, Inspector Ramirez, was it in relation to those charges?”

  “Yes,” Ramirez conceded. “Señor Ellis asked for a lawyer when he was being questioned by Sanchez and myself about the boy’s death. But he had no right under our laws to have one. He was informed of that at the time.”

  Jones nodded. “I heard the tape of that first interview with Mike.” She glanced at Ramirez uneasily. “But there were times when the tape recorder was shut off.”

  “Is that correct?” Britton asked, clicking the top of his pen even more rapidly.

  “Yes,” Ramirez nodded. He had shut off the tape because he had brought a bottle of añejo from the exhibit room into the interview so he could add some to his coffee. He needed it to control the trembling in his fingers.

  Rodriguez Sanchez had made a second, complete recording from the other side of the mirrored glass while he watched Ramirez question Ellis. But Ramirez wasn’t sure where that tape was anymore. Unless it was the tape that Sanchez had recorded over in the mountains when he kidnapped Celia Jones. The one still sitting on Ramirez’s desk.

  Sanchez had turned the recorder on while he described his own abuse at the hands of Rey Callendes, as if he was recording evidence, thought Ramirez. Sanchez had even asked Celia Jones if the statement of a dead man was admissible as evidence in a Canadian court, the way it was in Cuba.

  For the first time since Sanchez’s death, Ramirez wondered why.

  “What’s bothering you, Andrew?” asked Celia Jones, interrupting Ramirez’s thoughts.

  “I don’t like this, Celia,” said Britton. “Was Inspector Ramirez a person in authority? If he was, that confession is inadmissible. Ellis wasn’t given his right to counsel. Quite apart from the fact that the tape is incomplete, which is a whole other problem in itself.”