Summer reading: Stop the press and start the killing

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Randall Denley is the author of eight mysteries. His novel Payback was nominated for the Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime Novel Set in Canada. He has been a political columnist for more than 25 years and writes regularly for the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post. The following excerpt is from Kill Day, the newest novel in his Kris Redner mystery series.

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Ottawa crime writer Kris Redner’s relationship with former hockey star Darcy Lamb has grown stale and so has writing true crime books. She misses the thrill of new love and the adrenaline rush of daily journalism.

An unexpected solution presents itself when an old flame offers Kris a big new job at the Ottawa Citizen. Kris’s former lover, Colin Wendover, is the new editor and he wants to win Kris back. If she takes the job, what will it mean for her and Darcy?

Then a veteran Citizen police reporter is murdered and Kris feels compelled to find out why. She discovers something deeper and darker than she ever imagined. Kris, Darcy and Colin get caught up in what will become a major international story. Here’s an excerpt:

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Riff Rafferty cautiously pulled aside the heavy curtain on his bedroom window and looked down at Laurier Avenue East, three storeys below. The day had been warm for November, but now, at nearly midnight, the weather had turned. A cold rain moved in sheets down the road, driven by winds strong enough to cause street signs to sway and the last of the fall’s dead leaves to swirl in the air.

It was hard to see much from the small window at the best of times. The view from the balcony sliding doors was better, but it made him feel exposed, too visible from the street. Rafferty knew he was paranoid, but he didn’t consider it a flaw. It was a survival mechanism as old as humanity itself.

Two nights ago, a man in a black hoodie had stood for 25 minutes on the opposite side of the street in front of a burger shop, smoking and looking up at Rafferty’s building. He had finally tossed his cigarette and drifted off into the night, taking one more look in the direction of Rafferty’s apartment.

An ordinary person wouldn’t have thought a thing of it, but Rafferty wasn’t an ordinary person. He’d grown up rough in the Vanier district of Ottawa. You learned to look over your shoulder. A lot of the kids he’d come up with had become criminals, but Rafferty wanted something better, if not entirely different.

Forty-one years ago, he had talked his way into a job as a copyboy at the Ottawa Citizen, then parlayed his knowledge of the city’s crime scene into a job as a police reporter. He’d been at it ever since.

Rafferty pulled the curtain closed, then went into the tiny kitchen of his bachelor apartment and poured himself a Coke and Crown Royal, heavy on the Crown Royal. Some said drinking dulled the mind, but for Rafferty it led him into a state where he could take his brain out of gear and let bits of information float free until he could see how the points connected.

It usually worked, but he’d already had two drinks and it hadn’t yet. Maybe the third time would be the charm. He took the drink and settled in at his desk, also known as the kitchen table.

Rafferty had worked from home ever since the pandemic had shut down the newsroom. Being anti-social by nature, he preferred it. He didn’t need an editor looking over his shoulder, telling him how to do his job. It wasn’t that complicated. Writing about crime required two skills. The first was getting people to trust you and tell you stuff they shouldn’t. The second was connecting the many dots that made up a complex story. Who were the players, what were the motives, who did what to whom and when? Those were the big questions.

The criminal world was like any other. People knew each other, deals were made, favours traded, love and lust made people do crazy things. Very few crimes took place in isolation. They were part of a larger web. Seeing those connections was how you got the story, the real story, not the official BS the police would feed you.

The story he was trying to sort out in his head was one of those webs. It had started out with a shooting at a Somali wedding six months ago. Multiple shooters invaded the wedding reception at a small convention centre near the airport. They killed two men and wounded six others, firing off 50 rounds in the process.

The criminal world was like any other. People knew each other, deals were made, favours traded, love and lust made people do crazy things.

The story behind the shooting was still a complete mystery. There was no obvious motive and none of the killed or wounded had any apparent connections to gangs or crime. The police had no leads on the shooters and no one in the Somali community wanted to help. Best for those who knew something to keep their heads down and be grateful they were still alive.

Rafferty had put the wedding shooting on the back burner, but two days ago, there had been a startling event. Another wedding guest was gunned down while waiting for a pizza at a strip mall off St. Laurent Boulevard. That changed everything. Now it was clear that the latest victim, Ahmed Ali, was the target in the original shooting.

Rafferty had written a quick news hit, then started to beat the bushes to find out everything he could about Ali. After getting nothing from Ottawa police and the RCMP, Rafferty had gone to his number one gang source, a scary-looking character called Ibrahim Ibrahim.

The guy was six-four and had the dead eyes of a killer. His street name was Double Barrel. Some said it was because of his name, others attributed it to the shotgun that was Ibrahim’s favourite tool for settling a dispute. He controlled the drug trade in the west end of the city and was rumoured to be ruthless in disposing of competitors.

Ibrahim was a criminal, but he was also a smart businessman. He explained to Rafferty that all the heat that had been brought down after the wedding killing and the new pressure that followed the latest execution was bad for business. His guys were being hassled regularly. Everything had shut down.

Ibrahim told Rafferty that he might be able to get a lead on the people behind the two events. Was he interested?

“Shit yes,” Rafferty had replied. Ibrahim promised to look into it, get back to Rafferty by the end of the week. He said he’d like to eliminate whoever was behind it personally, but it would be better if the police caught them, keep him out of it.

As Ibrahim explained it, he’d give Rafferty the trail of breadcrumbs, then Rafferty’s story would lay it all out for the police.

Rafferty could understand Ibrahim’s motivation, but he certainly hadn’t ruled out the idea that Double Barrel’s guys had done the deed and now he was using Rafferty to point the police in a different direction. Rafferty had always made it a practice never to trust anyone, police, criminals, victims or witnesses. Everyone lied.

Rafferty had a whiteboard screwed to the kitchen wall. Sometimes things were easier to connect if you could see them. On it, he had stuck pictures of the victims from the wedding shooting and the guy who had been killed at the pizza place. He didn’t have a picture of Ibrahim, so had settled for writing the initials DB and circling them. Beside the DB, he had written the letters KD12. Double Barrel had told him that he’d heard the term in connection with the killing.

What did KD12 mean? Ibrahim was cryptic at the best of times and Rafferty couldn’t discount the idea that the gang leader was just screwing with him.

Rafferty finished his drink and stared at the board. These were the players, but how did they all connect? No magical solution appeared. To heck with it. It was after midnight. He’d start fresh in the morning, bolstered by a pot of strong coffee. It was a routine he’d been using for years. If alcohol didn’t work, try caffeine. If that still didn’t do it, throw in nicotine.

Rafferty had just gotten up from his chair when he heard a loud, demanding knock at the apartment door. Who the hell was that? He didn’t have any friends or family and it was late for bill collectors.

Rafferty advanced cautiously to the door and peered through the little fisheye in its centre. He saw an older guy, kind of Mediterranean looking, in a blue winter jacket and black pants. He had a tuque pulled down to his eyebrows and his face was obscured by a heavy, dark beard. He was carrying a red insulated bag with an UberEats logo on it.

“What do you want?” Rafferty barked.

“I got your order of Chinese.”

“I didn’t order anything. Take a hike.”

“You’re Rafferty, right? Apartment 3B? I got an order here for you.”

“You deaf? I didn’t order anything.”

“Sorry buddy,” the delivery man said. “Dispatch must have screwed up again, sent me to the wrong address. Look, it’s prepaid. You might as well take it. Still be good tomorrow.”

Free food. It didn’t sound like the worst idea Rafferty had ever heard. He’d never met a journalist who turned down free food.

He was still considering whether to open the door, take the deal, when he felt a blast of cold air come from behind him. He turned, saw the patio door was open, and glimpsed a large man with a crowbar raised in the air. It was too late to react.

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WHAT RANDALL DENLEY IS READING

I always have a novel and a non-fiction book on the go. My non-fiction is Ottawa writer Roy MacGregor’s Paper Trails, the story of his life and legendary career in journalism. Reading it is like sitting down with a fascinating friend. The novel is Scottish writer Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Unique story, brilliantly told by one of the best fiction writers out there.