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  Old Scores

  A Detective Barry Gilbert Mystery

  Scott Mackay

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2003 by Scott Mackay

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition April 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-811-8

  Also by Scott Mackay

  The Barry Gilbert Series

  Cold Comfort

  Fall Guy

  To my brother, Ian—THE DIODES RULE.

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to thank the following people for help in certain aspects of this novel:

  Nidia Vargas-Molnar, Michael Hofmann, Anton Hofmann of Fenelon Falls, Anton Hofmann of Germany, Dr. Thomas Kiss, Claire Mackay, Cindy Walker, Joanie Mackay, Donald Crowe, Jeanie Doggett, Ian Mackay, Paul Robinson, John Catto, John Hamilton, Gordon Hawes, Peter Robinson, Joshua Bilmes, and Marc Resnick.

  One

  Detective Barry Gilbert studied Glen Boyd’s dead body. Boyd lay on his back in the middle of the queen-size bed, his turquoise satin dressing gown flung open, his blue boxer shorts partially visible, a woolly mat of curly gray hair thick upon his chest. A woman’s silk scarf was tied around his neck. Boyd was profoundly cyanotic, his skin the bluish-gray color of a strangulation victim. Gilbert was surprised to see how frail Boyd was, not like the Boyd he once knew.

  Gilbert glanced at Constable Virginia Virelli, first officer on the scene. She stood rigidly at the end of the bed, a young woman, nervous, subdued, her hands behind her back, staring straight ahead. Her blond hair was tied tightly in a short ponytail.

  “Your first homicide?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You don’t have to be nervous,” said Gilbert. “He’s not going to get up and bite you.”

  She tried to grin but couldn’t “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “And don’t call me sir. Call me Barry. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “And where’s your partner?” he asked.

  “Downstairs taking the credit agent’s statement.”

  “And did you speak to the credit agent yourself?” asked Gilbert.

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “And did you catch his name?”

  “Ryan Gill, sir,” she said.

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he came to make a collection call on behalf of Evergreen Property Management. The victim was five months behind in his rent. When he came upstairs he found the door partially open. He knocked but no one answered. So he came inside.” She glanced around the big one-room apartment. “He discovered the victim lying on the bed, sir. He called nine-one-one.”

  Gilbert nodded. “Thank you.”

  Officer Virelli peered at Gilbert.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “You’re wearing a tuxedo, sir,” she said.

  He grinned. “It’s my birthday,” he said. “My wife and I were at the theater when headquarters called. She was taking me out.”

  “Oh,” she said. A strained smile came to her face. “Many happy returns, sir.”

  He could see she was still having a hard time acting normal around Boyd.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It’s my fiftieth. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Congratulations, sir,” she said. “You don’t look fifty.”

  He gazed at the young officer, realizing he was over twice her age.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He glanced at the disarray around the apartment: the broken plate on the floor, the clothes scattered everywhere, the chair knocked down beside the table. Had there been a struggle, he wondered?

  “Has Detective Lombardo been notified?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said Constable Virelli. “I spoke to him personally. He should be here any minute.”

  This time she managed a grin.

  “Why are you grinning?” he asked.

  Her grin disappeared. “No reason, sir,” she said.

  Gilbert frowned. “Let me guess,” he said. “He asked you out, didn’t he?”

  Constable Virelli’s grin came back. The color climbed to her face. “No, sir,” she said. “But he sure can be charming.”

  Gilbert shook his head. “Oh, he’s charming all right.” He slid his hand into his pocket where he felt his theater ticket stub. “You might as well help your partner,” he said. He knew she wanted to get away from Boyd’s body. “I don’t think there’s anything else you can do here.” He noticed Boyd had three toenails painted red with nail polish. “I’ll call if I need help.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  She left the apartment, trying to put some confidence in her stride.

  Gilbert looked at Glen Boyd. He never thought he would see the man again. Funny how he should be standing here like this. The apartment, open-concept, was a bachelor pad, with the kitchenette built right into the wall, and the rest of the place a bedroom, living room, and dining room combined. Funny how life could play pranks like this. He wasn’t upset, just unsettled. Boyd looked so old. He had a crescent-shaped welt on his forehead, as if he’d been hit with something. An unopened packet of cocaine, five or six grams, rested on the bedside table. So did a bunch of weird candles. The smell of urine rose from the bed. Boyd looked as if he’d been flung onto the bed. Was he strangled next to the laundry hamper, or the piano, or the dining room table, then moved to the bed? Did the messy apartment in fact indicate a struggle? Or was Boyd just a messy guy?

  Boyd still had long hair after all these years. Most of it was gray. Despite the cyanotic color of his skin, Boyd’s nose was red and raw. Habitual cocaine use, thought Gilbert. Life in the fast lane, that was Glen Boyd’s credo. An earring was skewered through his left ear, and eyeliner lined his eyes. The right sleeve of his turquoise dressing gown, pushed up, revealed a peppering of track marks.

  Gilbert took his hand out of his pocket and rocked on his heels a few times. The open skylight let in mild June air. He loosened his black bow tie. A door to the right led to Boyd’s office, a second-floor storefront affair facing Queen Street. Out the open kitchenette window he heard a streetcar rumble by. Framed photographs hung above the battered piano. Gilbert walked over and had a look.

  In one photograph, Boyd stood with members of Led Zeppelin outside the old Masonic Temple, where all the old bands used to play. It was all coming back now, Glen Boyd, the concert-promoter legend of the 1970s, the rock-and-roll mogul who had brought so many great acts to Toronto. Another photograph showed Boyd backstage at Maple Leaf Gardens with Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Bands from a bygone era, he thought, before Boyd’s name had faded from the entertainment pages. In another photograph, Boyd, with spiky pink hair and a nose ring, posed in the green room at Massey Hall with members of the Toronto supergroup Mother Courage. Gilbert shook his head. Mother Courage. No one ever talked about them anymore. So many photographs of Boyd with famous people who weren’t so famous anymore. Why did people in the entertainment industry always have vanity walls like this? Why did they have such big egos? Why couldn’t they just be normal?

  He looked at the smashed plate. It lay only a few fee
t away from the piano bench. A hanging wire connected two of the pieces. Looking closer, Gilbert saw that it was actually an ornamental plate, something to be hung on a wall, and in fact, one of the picture hangers on the wall was empty, the spot showing a vague outline of the plate. Put the pieces of the plate together and you had a couple of men on donkeys crossing some mountains. Had the plate been thrown, used as a projectile during a struggle? He looked at the spilled jar of coins at the end of the piano. The jar looked as if it might have been thrown as well.

  “Barry?” Lombardo called.

  “Up here,” he answered. “First door on your right.”

  Joe appeared in the doorway, impeccably dressed, a handsome young man of thirty-four. He walked over to the bed and had a look at Boyd. Gilbert joined him. The bed was a water bed. Who had water beds these days? A lava lamp stood on the bedside table amid all the crazy candles.

  “A credit agent found him,” said Gilbert.

  “A credit agent?”

  A pigeon landed briefly on the skylight, then flew away.

  “He was five months behind in his rent,” said Gilbert. “At least that’s what Constable Virelli told me.”

  Lombardo’s eyes brightened. “Did you see Constable Virelli?” he asked.

  Gilbert frowned wearily. “I saw her.”

  “She’s a knockout,” said Joe. “Italian, too.” Lombardo’s eyes narrowed. “Only I wonder why her folks called her Virginia?” His lips pursed. “Virginia’s not an Italian name.”

  Gilbert’s shoulders sank. “Do you know what Virginia means, Joe?” he asked.

  Lombardo frowned. “Here we go,” he said.

  “She’s a nice kid, Joe,” said Gilbert. “Emphasis on kid.”

  “She looked a little pale.”

  “It’s her first,” said Gilbert. He motioned at Boyd. “I’d say it happened sometime in the last couple hours.” He lifted Boyd’s arm. It was cool to the touch, and skinny. “You’ve got the blood sinking to the underside here,” said Gilbert, showing Lombardo the limb’s lividity. To demonstrate another point, he let the arm drop. It fell as limply as a wet noodle. “But there’s no rigor mortis yet.” Gilbert checked his watch. “Which means the time of death was probably around nine-thirty.”

  Lombardo was staring at him now. “You’re wearing a tuxedo.”

  Gilbert grinned. “It’s my birthday. Regina took me to the theater. I got beeped at intermission.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” said Joe. “Happy birthday. It’s the big five-O, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t look a day over sixty. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” said Gilbert grimly.

  “Listen, after we finish up here, let me take you out for a drink. Where’s Regina? Is she still at the theater? We could pick her up.”

  Gilbert hesitated. “I’m not sure where she is,” he said. “I lost her.”

  “You lost her?” said Lombardo. “At the theater?”

  “Yes.”

  “Weren’t you sitting with her?”

  “I was,” he said. “But we got separated at intermission. I got paged. I went to answer the page. I had to find a public telephone because my cell isn’t working. When I got back, I couldn’t find Regina anywhere.”

  Lombardo shook his head.

  “Usually when you turn fifty you lose your keys or your glasses, but not your wife. I guess senility’s going to hit you big-time.”

  Gilbert frowned. “No, seriously, I looked all over the place. I don’t know what happened to her. The little bell dinged, and everybody went back to their seats, and I still couldn’t find her. It’s got me a little worried, to tell you the truth.”

  Lombardo rubbed his five-o’clock stubble. “Maybe there was a long line-up at the ladies’ can,” he said. From out the open skylight, Gilbert heard a ship moan on Lake Ontario. “I’m sure she’s sitting in her seat wondering where you are.” Lombardo smiled sympathetically. “Christ, some birthday.”

  “When you’re on-call,” said Gilbert, “you’re on-call.”

  Lombardo glanced at Boyd’s office door. “What’s out front there?” he asked.

  “Boyd’s office,” said Gilbert.

  “He ran a business from here?”

  Gilbert nodded. “Glen Boyd International Artists,” he said.

  “Why’s that name sound familiar?” asked Lombardo.

  “Boyd was a famous rock concert promoter back in the seventies and eighties,” said Gilbert. “He brought a lot of name acts to town.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Lombardo. “Like who?”

  “Like Led Zeppelin, Judy Pelaez, and Aerosmith, for starters.” Gilbert searched his memory. “Plus a lot of Canadian bands like the Guess Who, Lighthouse, and Mother Courage. In fact, I think he managed Mother Courage for a while.”

  Lombardo smiled nostalgically. “Now there’s a name from the past,” he said.

  “I’ve still got some of their albums,” said Gilbert. “Did I ever tell you Regina actually went to high school with one of the band members? Michelle Morrison? The girl who played keyboards?”

  Lombardo squinted. “The dishy one?”

  Gilbert shook his head and sighed. “All women are dishy to you, Joe.”

  While they waited for the Crime Scene Unit and the coroner’s van to arrive, Gilbert and Lombardo investigated the premises more thoroughly.

  While Lombardo searched the office, Gilbert continued with the apartment.

  He looked at the jar and all the spilled coins again. The two-quart Mason jar was so sturdy it hadn’t been broken in the fall. He knelt. He looked more closely at the coins. Half of them were from foreign countries—English farthings, French francs, Italian lire, Greek drachmas—all of them old, no euros, a possible indication that Boyd’s jet-setting days were long over.

  Then he looked at the plate again. Men on donkeys crossing mountains. Two big pieces attached by a hanging wire, with a few smaller pieces around them. He stood up. Boyd’s international playground had shrunk to this crappy little apartment on Queen Street, he decided. Served the bastard right.

  He spied a few sickly marijuana plants growing on the windowsill. Plus a lot of pill bottles. He struggled to remain dispassionate about Boyd, but it was hard, especially after what Boyd had done to Regina. He looked at the piano, tinkled the keys. It was out of tune. He looked at all the old photographs again. Should he be working this case? He wasn’t sure.

  He looked at the photographs once more. Time had stopped for Glen Boyd around 1985, judging from these photographs. He saw photographs of Boyd with Culture Club, Platinum Blond, and Deborah Harry. Here was an earlier one—Boyd with legendary folk singer Judy Pelaez. Hadn’t they been married for a while? The big famous HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles stood on a hill behind them. He studied Judy Pelaez, a beautiful wisp of a woman wearing a clingy sweater and a black beret. Another name from the past. He frowned. The seventies. Gone. But not forgotten.

  He went back to Boyd’s bedside. Did he hate the man, or was hate too good for Boyd? How many hearts have you broken? Gilbert wondered. And how many lives have you ruined? He remembered Boyd’s face well. While still broad and forceful, its lines and wrinkles told a tale of drug and alcohol abuse. He reached up and touched his own face. By comparison, his own face was smooth. Boyd was so terribly thin. Maybe he had AIDS. With all those track marks on his arm, Gilbert wouldn’t have been surprised.

  In fact, Boyd was the one black mark in his life. Even now, twenty-three years later, he felt the echoes of those intense nine months—when Regina, through Michelle Morrison, had come under this man’s thrall. He shook himself. He was over it. Of course he was. This was just another case. And he could work this case. It was all a matter of police procedure. As long as he remembered that, focused on that, this case would be a breeze.

  He leaned closer. What was that? A blond hair on the duvet beside Boyd’s shoulder. He pulled out a latex glove, slipped it on, lifted the hair, and examined i
t in the light. Regina had blond hair. He chuckled because he actually caught himself feeling nervous about the blond hair. How ridiculous, that events from twenty-three years ago could still do this to him. He shook his head and took out a plastic evidence bag. He slipped the hair into the bag and zip-locked it shut.

  He caught a whiff of something. He sniffed the air. Over and above the acid scent of Boyd’s urine, he smelled perfume. The perfume was coming from the scarf. Perhaps the scarf belonged to one of Boyd’s lady friends. Boyd was certainly known for his lady friends.

  He walked to the office door and looked inside.

  Two desks occupied much of the cramped space. One of the telephones looked as if it had been thrown to the floor. Lombardo sat at the far desk flipping through a book of cryptic crosswords. Five Rubik’s Cubes sat on the desk amid a scattering of disorganized papers. The computer screen-saver displayed one of M. C. Escher’s optically confusing etchings.

  “The guy was a puzzle freak,” said Lombardo.

  “That’s what I remember about him,” said Gilbert.

  “You know the guy?” said Lombardo.

  “From way back when.” Gilbert reined himself in, deciding to downplay it for Lombardo. “Just in passing. Through Michelle Morrison, my wife’s old high school chum. You know. The dishy one.”

  Lombardo gestured at Boyd’s computer. “I was hoping it would take me right in. But he’s buggered it up with passwords.”

  “That sounds like Boyd.”

  “It won’t even let me into the operating system,” said Lombardo.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s rigged it with passwords on every single application,” commented Gilbert. “He was like that. Regina said he liked crosswords and acrostics, and had a real head for puzzles. Look at his screen saver. That’s a puzzle in itself.”

  Gilbert decided he might be useful on this case after all. At least he knew something about the man.

  Lombardo shook his head. “I guess we’re going to have to get Computer Support to crack it for us.”