The Guilty Plea by Robert Rotenberg Page B

name, and call them professionals. Tell them how much you’d love to talk, but you have a case to solve. Blah, blah, blah.”
    “Kirt?” Greene said. Kirt Bishop was a smart reporter from The Globe and Mail .
    “Who’s your prime suspect?” Bishop asked, pen and pad in hand.
    Greene smiled. “Kirt, at the risk of using the oldest cliché in the book: the investigation’s ongoing.”
    Everyone chuckled. “Zac?” Greene pointed to Zachery Stone, a short, aggressive reporter from the Toronto Sun .
    “Where’s Wyler’s wife?”
    “Hey, you’re all professionals.” Greene grinned even more widely. “Zac, cliché number two: I can’t discuss the details of the case at this time.”
    Now everyone laughed.
    “Awotwe?” Awotwe Amankwah, a tough reporter from the Toronto Star , was the only black face in the crowd.
    “Four more people killed last night makes sixty-four so far this year. Twenty in the last two months. People are calling this the Summer of the Gun. What’s going on?”
    “We need to keep things in perspective.” Statistics were the other part of Greene’s media training. Every week he was peppered with memos on how to talk down the latest body count. “According to Statistics Canada, Toronto’s the tenth most dangerous city in the country. Our homicide rate is half that of Winnipeg, which is the worst in Canada.”
    There were a few reporters in the crowd he didn’t recognize. Greene turned to address them. “To the American journalists who are here, Toronto’s twenty-eighth of all major North American cities in homicides, and we’re the fifth biggest urban area after New York, L.A., Chicago, and Mexico City.”
    An Asian woman who’d elbowed her way to the front caught his eye. “Yes?” he said.
    “Margaret Kwon, Faces magazine.” She had a strong New York accent. “April Goodling—have you seen her?”
    “I have,” Greene said.
    “Where?” Kwon asked. She held up a slim digital recorder.
    “On the cover of almost every magazine on the newsstand,” Greene said. That received the loudest laugh yet.
    “Do you know where she was last night?” Kwon asked. Something about the question made Greene think this reporter already knew the answer.
    He made a show of looking at his watch. “Folks, we’ve got a long day ahead of us. I’ll update you when we have more news.”
    People dispersed, anxious to meet their deadlines. The television crews were happy because they’d gotten the shot of Greene and Kennicott coming out of the house. It didn’t really matter what he’d said. Radio and print people had a few quotes. Greene watched Kwon, the American reporter on the other side of the police tape. She was in no hurry to leave. He nodded at her. She picked up the signal and lingered, writing in her notepad.
    “Detective Ari Greene,” he said a few minutes later, when everyone else had gone. He reached out to shake hands.
    She gave him an uncomfortable handshake, as if she were performing some outlandish ritual. Her hair was a deep black, her face rounded and her skin smooth. She wore a pair of narrow glasses that accentuated her piercing black eyes. It was difficult to guess her age. Greene put her in her early forties, though she could pass for about ten years younger. “I come here every year for the film festival and I always have to get used to you Canadians being so polite.”
    “Tough adjustment,” Greene said. “You on the April Goodling story?”
    She let go of his hand slowly. “Twenty-four seven.”
    He took her recorder and turned it off. “Why do I have the feeling you know where she was last night?”
    “Why do I have the feeling that you’re a smart cop?” Kwon asked back. She hadn’t resisted when he’d turned off her recorder.
    “What can you tell the lead detective on the ‘Divorce from the North’ case?”
    “Divorce from the North” was the title of one of the articles Greene had read about Goodling. He’d asked Kennicott to grab him some