Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

McGrath didn’t. “A mask…” he pondered, sucking the last drops of life out of his latte. “Did you happen to notice all that computer equipment in Kolvin’s apartment?”

“I noticed. What about it?”

“The mall surveillance system is digital-computer-controlled. I wonder…”

“Wish upon a star while you’re at it,” Pinero growled. “I’m gonna grab me some gym time then sack out.”

“Good idea,” McGrath said, eyeing a street-corner Sally Ann that served all-night joe. “I think I’ll log some sleep myself. Then first thing tomorrow morning, I think I’ll consult with a high-placed friend of mine. A friend who sees all, knows a thing or two about subterfuge.” He winked a pouchy eye at his partner.

Pinero snorted.

Early next morning, Pinero dropped McGrath off at the Defence Department Building downtown, then proceeded to Lenny’s bungalow for another look-see. He lifted the yellow tape, ducked inside the squalid digs.

Everything was just as crummy as before, the dust settled back to where it had lain for the fifty years before Forensics had disturbed things. Pinero went into the bedroom, looked at the dirty clothes strewn on the floor, the unmade, sheet-soiled bed, the battered nightstand with the “barely legal” skin mags on top, the splintered garage sale card table where Lenny’s powerful stolen computer had sat.

He walked over to the doorless closet, fingered through the tie-dyed and BC Bud T-shirts, the Manitoba Moose jerseys, getting nothing more out of it than a probable skin rash. Kristal had told the detectives that lover-boy Lenny was nutso over the Moose, a minor league hockey team playing in the frozen tundra of Winnipeg, Manitoba-Lenny’s birthplace.

And as Pinero stared at the jerseys, something suddenly tumbled inside his skull. He retraced his steps, to the front door of the rathole, where a Manitoba Moose jacket hung on a hook. He examined the bulky jacket, fingered the sewn – on crest – a smug-looking cartoon moose holding a hockey stick, a frozen pond in the background. He plucked the jacket off the hook and took it with him.

When Pinero entered the Squad Room he found Sergeant Bugler hanging over one of McGrath’s bony shoulders, their eyes glued to something on the computer screen. Pinero admired Bugler’s tight, round bottom for a moment, then said, “Found another good Jimmy Neutron site?” He flung his leather jacket over the back of his chair.

Bugler glanced up, annoyed. McGrath’s pavement-hued face tinged slightly red.

Pinero took up position behind an unoccupied shoulder.

“The lab technicians have finished stripping Lenny’s computer equipment,” McGrath told his partner. “They found enough child porn to put the Thailand Bureau of Tourism out of business, but look what they found in his webcam history.” The detective took a long, suspenseful slurp of fresh-brewed coffee.

“Why would a rat like Lenny even have a webcam?” Pinero asked no one in particular. “To see him is to hate him.”

McGrath finally swallowed. “Lenny was technologically armed, like all professional criminals are getting these days.” He looked up at Sergeant Bugler meaningfully. “Like all law enforcement officials need to be to keep up with them.”

Bugler nodded vaguely, squeezed his shoulder.

McGrath stroked the keyboard, and Lenny’s ugly mug popped up on-screen, wispy whiskers framing a buck-toothed mouth. McGrath dragged the bar at the bottom, and Lenny went all fast and jerky. Then his jaundiced face suddenly turned mouse-white, his beady eyes registering panic. McGrath lifted his finger, returning the action to normal speed.

Lenny leaped out of his chair and skittered to the bedroom door. Someone was yelling at him from the hallway: “You put me away and I’m going to put you away, Rat!”

Lenny backed away, paws up and out in supplication, and a face briefly appeared in the shadowy doorway. McGrath froze the picture, cleared away some of the shadow, locked onto and enhanced the face: Bertrand Kolvin, delicate features twisted with rage, ponytail in a knot.

“Hmmm,” Pinero commented. “So Bertrand Kolvin threatened Lenny’s life. Who hasn’t? I heard the Doukhobors even put out a contract on the guy once.”

McGrath’s brown-toothed grin was a thing of triumph for everyone but the BC Dental Association. He restored the full picture, pointed to the timeline at the bottom of the screen. It read: 14 Nov 2005, 21:45:24. He said, “We know Bertrand Kolvin threatened Lenny Laymon on Sunday at 9:45 p.m. Now, let’s just see if he followed up on that threat. There’s nothing more of interest on the webcam, but remember that high-placed friend I was telling you about? Well, he CSIS’s all. Take a gander at this video, and note the time and date again.”

Pinero cracked his knuckles. Bugler sighed. McGrath clicked. The computer revealed a black world inhabited by white images, a timeline reading: 16 Nov 2005, 01:47:38 PTZ. The view was from on-high, way high, the white figure emerging out of a parked car a thermal image. The figure crossed a street with the jerky movement of time lapse photography, paused at the door of a house, and then went inside.

“Location?” Pinero asked.

“Two hundred block of Alexander Street,” McGrath crowed. “That bungalow,” he pointed, “is Lenny’s place-right around the time of his death.”

“Lenny coming home after a hard day’s night of working the back pockets of the bar crowd?” Pinero suggested.

McGrath shook his head, replayed the sequence. “See how the figure dips to the right when he walks? Do you know what that is?”

“A limp,” Bugler breathed.

McGrath beamed. “A limp is right. A noticeable limp. Lenny didn’t limp. But-”

“Bertrand Kolvin limps,” Pinero admitted.

The three police officers watched some more, watched a figure come skulking down the sidewalk, pick something up out of the gutter along the way, slip into Lenny’s house at 02:15:52 PTZ-Lenny returning home? Watched the limper exit Lenny’s house at 02:30:21 PTZ, get in a car and drive away.

“Like I said before, we should brace Bertrand Kolvin,” Pinero stated. Then added, “Too bad none of this is admissible in court, privacy laws and Charters of Rights and Freedoms being what they are.”

“It’s all strictly on the qt,” McGrath agreed. “I have to delete everything in an hour. But… the show’s not over yet.” He pointed and clicked and dragged some more, seemed to replay the scene of the limper exiting a car and entering Lenny’s house. Only now the timeline read: 17 Nov 2005, 02:02:13 PTZ. A full day later.

“What!? Why would Kolvin risk returning to the scene the next night?” Bugler asked.

“Good question,” McGrath replied, as they watched the limper leave Lenny’s death trap at 02:06:37 PTZ.

Bugler straightened up, her back cracking, head shaking. “But if Lenny was actually bumped off by Bertrand Kolvin early Tuesday morning, then how in heck did he participate in a jewelry store robbery Tuesday night?”

“Another good question,” McGrath responded, browning his nose still further. He looked at his partner. “Did anyone think to bring in Lenny’s jacket, by any chance?”

“Yeah,” Pinero replied, blowing a bubble. “I did – just now. It’s in the Lab, undergoing intense comparison with some surveillance video.”

McGrath nodded, grinned, tried to wash back the rising tide of his excitement with a shot of coffee. “My friends at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service also provided me with some useful information about making faces-false faces.”

Bugler glanced at Pinero as McGrath cackled, choked and coughed up some coffee. Pinero just shrugged.

Search warrants were issued, served, and executed on Bertrand Kolvin’s swank Port Coquitlam condominium, Matthew Kolvin’s downtown dump, that afternoon. McGrath and Pinero happily split up so they could cover both searches, and two hours and ten phone calls later, they felt they had enough evidence to bring the Kolvins in for questioning.