Cold City Streets Read Free Page A

furtive senses of imagination. And while the smell of weed wasn’t enough “probable cause” under Canadian drug laws to search the place without a warrant any more, it was reasonable grounds to knock on the door and ask questions. “Open the door please,” Carver barked. “We know you’re in there.”
    He waited for a few moments.
    The door opened a crack. A woman, short – tiny, even – in her twenties, peeked out. She had ginger hair in a pageboy cut and her pale blue eyes were wide and nervous. “Yes?”
    In the background he heard someone hiss “Put the fucking chain on!”
    The smell of pot grew stronger. He could see an opening to another room over her head, directly to the left of the front door, and Carver leaned on the door so that it swung open enough to see properly. It startled her; the woman stumbled backwards a step, unable to resist his weight. He glanced over at the room quickly. A small, dark-haired man in a t-shirt and jeans crouched by a coffee table. He had shoes on, wet and messy, and frantically tried to sweep everything off the table top and into a bag. The pile of marijuana was considerable, a mountain of green sitting next to a chrome scale and a pile of plastic baggies. A stack of bills toppled next to the weed.
    “Police!” Carver pushed past the woman and into the home.
    “I didn’t say you could―” she objected as she was shoved aside.
    The young man on his haunches by the coffee table turned a head of dark hair; he looked shocked for a split second as they barged in, then he sprinted towards the back of the home. Carver ran after him, through the cramped, dark living room with its brown carpet and flower-print sofa, into the small, outdated u-shaped kitchen. Before Carver could reach him, the man thrust open the back door and sprinted outside… right into the arms of the constable with the thick winter coat.
    The smaller man struggled, but the constable pushed him down into the snow on the back step, under the dim bulb of the porch light, his face forward, arms pulled roughly behind him as the police officer handcuffed him and put weight on him. A few doors away a back light came on, and a dog barked with an urgent tone.
    The detectives were there a moment later. Carver leaned over the man being restrained. “What’s your name, son?”
    “Fuck you! I didn’t do nothing!” He struggled with the restraints and the partial bulk of the constable.
    The constable felt something between them. He reached under himself to the man’s waistband, and his prisoner struggled even more. “What’s this…?” The young officer’s gloved hand came out holding a pistol. “Looks like a nine.”
    Gunshot wounds were big enough to be a nine millimeter , Carver thought. The officer passed him the gun; he took his pencil from inside his jacket pocket and pushed it down the barrel, so that he could receive it like a flag, without touching it and potentially ruining prints. “Fired very recently, I’m guessing. Is that right, sir?”
    “I’m not saying a fucking thing,” the man protested, his accent bearing the slightly Gaelic lilt of the Maritimes. “You planted that, you cocksucker!”
    Carver turned to Mariner, who had just snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. “Here, bag this.” Then he nodded to the constable. “Make sure he doesn’t have any more weapons and see if he has some ID.”
    The younger man patted the suspect down. “Got a wallet here. Seems we’re talking with … a Mr. Paul Sidney. That right Paul?”
    “FUCK YOU!” the man yelled, so angry he spat slightly, struggling intensely. “Get off me, you fucking pig!”
    Behind them, they heard a noise. His wife came to the kitchen door, her face turning from shock to anger.
    “You,” Carver said to her authoritatively. “Stay put.”  Then he leaned in towards her husband. “Now, you might want to restrain yourself, Mr. Sidney, or we’re going to have to do it for you. That’s going to involve a Taser. Have