Gabor Kiraly
Love Can Kill You Baby
*
Copyright 2014 By Gabor Kiraly
Chapter 1.
The man slowly pulled the door closed, not to wake up his little girl, who finally fell asleep. It was around nine o'clock, way past her bedtime. He was glad that her mother was in Europe, she would not let this happen. In their family, him, the father was who tried to manage her daughter's life with love, and his wife was who made priorities, schedules, plans and not only for their daughter. She believed in order, and discipline, and she followed up on everything, like a hound.
Well, he thought, it doesn't matter right now, she was in the middle of her vacation in Hungary, visiting with her family and friends. They couldn't afford for all three of them to go together, so first it was Marika's turn, and ? they will go from there.
Robert got the TV-dinner out of the microwave, took it to the living room, and turned on a sports channel. Marika approved neither eating in the living room, nor watching sports totally, but this month was the month of freedom. It was late November, hockey season, what else you can ask for?
He sat on the sofa, and sank into the game. In the break after the first period, he cleaned the coffee table from any fallen little pieces of his dinner, and checked on the girl again. She was sound asleep. It was time to turn the volume on, and enjoy the game. It was a good game, one of those rare-ones when the Leafs were actually ahead several points. He checked the time on his wristwatch, he expected someone. Suddenly he heard the apartment door closing, and he looked up:" Oh, you? Wow!" He spun around to turn the TV off. Before he reached the remote, three shots rang out, quieted by a silencer. The TV people on the screen roared another point to the Leafs.
Robert was dead before his body hit the floor, his little girl still fast asleep. The shooter took the silencer off, and left it and the handgun in the plastic bag, which held the empty casings. Walked around in the living room, pulling out drawers, looking for something. Finally put everything away, looked around once more, and then left.
After many calm and quiet years, a murder in Parry Sound!
Chapter 2.
If you open the map of Canada, you will notice at least two geographical features: The Hudson Bay, and the Great Lakes. There is much more, though these two will hit you in the eyes. For now, we leave the Hudson Bay behind, and turn our intention towards the Great Lakes, although not to the five "great" ones, but the sixth, the Georgian Bay. This is home of the great outdoors, great fishing, the Thirty Thousand Islands, and famous for Cottage Country. In the heart of all this lays Parry Sound, a mostly sleepy small town, with its small town beauty, and small town people.
Everybody knows of everybody, most of the time people know more than the actual individuals know about their own lives. Parry Sound has a great history, a lot happened here in the past: this was the logging capital of the area, ocean-liners from Europe, cruise-liners from the US and all over were berthing in the town's dock, both great railway company's line crosses the town still, as well as the Trans-Canada Highway.
Close to town, on Parry Island, Depot harbour was a real deep-water port, even for ocean-going freighters, until someone figured that it's taking away too much business from the railroad. The town still have the swing bridge, which gave way to trains when closed and to ships when it's opened, plus another "memorial", the Depot harbour ghost town. None of it is a real tourist destination; you can hardly find Depot harbour in the bush anymore.
The town always have at least two pub and grill type entertainment?mm ?centre, where you will find the same people, sitting at the same spot, drinking their usual, whenever you open the bar-door, to take your regular spot.
In the summer, everything goes thru a miraculous conversion, the town's never changing 6.500 population jumps up to 30.000 overnight, and the town folks start hating the turrorists. There will be no shopping carts in stores, no parking spots, and no available taxicabs anymore; however, the line at the beer- and liquor stores will be longer several times over. Surprisingly you won't find the "tourists" at the District Museum, which is discreetly hidden in the bush, and you won't find them on the two very short beaches of the town. They don't go to the Bobby Orr Community Centre, and even if they do, they won't see too much, for it is basically a hockey arena. Some brave souls will risk an adventure to the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame in the Charles W. Stockey Centre. It would be a wasted effort to get any information on Charles W., for it could be just me but I never met anybody in the town, who knew anything about him.
However, there won't be shortage in traffic jams, or drunk people on the streets at night. From the end of June 'til Labour Day the town's own biological clock stops, providing a never ending Friday afternoon and night. It seems that everybody just was paid nobody works anymore. At two in the morning, there is the same number of people on the streets, just as if it was at two in the afternoon, with a minor difference: at night, much more of them drunk?
"Well "said Joe Bryan, "at least we got Bobby Orr". Ahhh?So true! This little town is one of the luckiest, for here they can at least proudly say this town is the Home Of Bobby Orr, who, if someone would not know it yet, is one of the few great hockey players of all time. He could have been born somewhere else; however, he did born here, giving a good chance to the town to cash in good on his name. "Yap, we got him at least" said Joe having a last look towards the Bobby Orr Community Centre, coming over on the Seguin-river bridge, finishing up his daily walk.
Chapter 3.
As I said, Parry Sound -except in the summer- was a slow, sleepy town, so when the Mezei-murder happened, it amazed all 6.500 occupants. (Interestingly this number never changed in the past 14 years, since I came to town. It must be quite rare, knowing that people usually never fallow a straight plan in childbirths or deaths?)
Of course, the town has its share of crime; then again those cases are straight small town crimes. Drinking and driving, public indecency, public drunkenness, soft drugs, drinking teens, smoking teens, wife beating, husband beating, some people dare to have four dogs, even though the by-law clearly states that you only can have three, but as it seems, they just don't care. Once even, I witnessed that somebody was whistling a tune from Elvis, knowing very well that there is a noise by-law in place? Some people go out to have good time, and shortly after two or three fights, they go home satisfied and life bumps back to normal.
That's why the Mezei-murder shocked everybody. There was this Hungarian family, young, full with plans, dreams, and anticipation about their new, chosen home, Canada. The husband Robert, a house painter, in the best age for a man, productive, strong, energetic.
His wife Marika, a real beauty. Under thirty, athletic great body, like of a gazelle.
Some say that she kept Robert on a tight leash, for he was handsome and Marika hated competition. She had straight rules; you could say "bossy'. It was her way or the highway...
It happened that Marika went back to the old country to visit, she needed to see her family, and she missed her friends. While she had a good time in Hungary, about two weeks after she left, somebody murdered Robert in their home, shot him three times, while a young girl, their daughter was sleeping in the next room. She did not wake up; she did not make any noises, probably that saved her life.
The apartment was slightly in ruins; seemingly, the killer was looking for valuables. Either found any, or not wasn't right away obvious, but you could tell, it was not a work of a vandal. There was no furniture, vases, or anything broken. There were drawers pulled out, papers, and documents on the floor. The mild mess the killer left, made it hard to determine what was missing. The little girl wouldn't know, she was only three at the time, and the woman of the household was
at least 7.000 miles away. The police did not let details leaking, so the town people knew very little. However, they knew that it was a real murder, done with a gun; there was blood, and real death. The town was waiting scared, what's or who's next? A killer was on the loose.
Chapter 4.
Naturally, with the help of the Hungarian embassy, the OPP tracked down Marika, and they relayed the bad news to her. As a favour, Air Canada honored her return ticket, which was dated for two weeks later, and she arrived home as soon as it was possible.
There was a discreet service planned with a few friends, however, about two third of the town shoved up at the funeral home. Of course, not everybody knew Robert, though knew of him, and it was a great occasion for social gathering.
The police was there with still- and video cameras, to collect photos of as many new faces in the crowd as they can, for later analysis, with hope that the killer will be amongst them. Actually, no one said that the killer was a stranger or an out-of-towner, but on the other hand, who can tell?
Finally, it was over, the crowd moved on. Sometime later Marika got Robert's ashes, which she planned to take back to Hungary, knowing that it was Robert's wish.
The West Parry Sound local OPP detachment has an excellent team of officers; however, they had no experience, no staff, no forensic lab or equipment, to do the job right. The investigation was taken over by officers of the Orillia OPP headquarters.
They started their investigation. At the end of the first day, they reported in the six o'clock news from Barrie that they can already prove that unknown individual, or individuals killed Robert Mezei using a gun of unknown origin, with at least two or more shots fired. In order to aid the investigation, they are not at liberty to go into more details at this point.
All this in one day!
If you're a TV watcher, you know that after the first 48 hours gone, the chance of ever catching a killer drastically reduces. They did not find any fingerprints that would not belong there; no DNA was found others than the occupants'. In the order of things the first on the list to check and question, was Marika, Robert's widow who could not help at all, since she was a half a world away when it happened. To the questions about enemies Robert might have had, she could only answer that "No, not that I know of. He was a friendly, well liked, nice person". The police could not get much information from her; understandably, she was grieving, left on her own. Every witness's opinion was that they were a loving couple, so soon the police turned their attention to another direction, left her alone to deal with her duties as a widow and now single mother.
The little girl, Alexa was of no help, even though they questioned her by the assistance of a forensic psychiatrist, a lady from the Children's Aid, with her Mom present in the room. She simply slept thru the whole ordeal.
There were surveillance cameras in the area, one at the nearby restaurant, the Wellington's, another at the building which houses an insurance brokerage right across the street, and one at the small service garage and gas station on the corner of James- and Rosetta Streets. These cameras showed no heavy pedestrian traffic in the period the coroner gave, as the time of death, give or take an hour. There was a little vehicle movement, and they could single out one particular car at the time when the murder happened. It came from the direction of Miller Street, parked by the service station, between two vans; a person got out and walked into the victim's house.
It was dark, the low quality camera's lens dusty, and constantly moving with the wind. The best they could discover from the video-recordings, that it was probably a four door, Asian model, possibly younger than a year or two, but the footage was so grainy, that it was impossible to know any more, like license plate number, or even color of the car. It was certain that one person got out, but race, sex age was still a mystery. It was also unknown, if there was any other person in the car.
To the question: why bother having surveillance cameras, if they are low quality, and not maintained was no answer. They could buy duds, for the fraction of the cost, or get good quality ones, and keep them maintained, for useful surveillance? this was just another dead lead. They brought in more resources from Orillia, and expansively canvassed the neighborhood. They asked around in a five hundred meter circle, from the wine-club owner to the gas-bar operator, but the timing of the crime was so well arranged that nobody saw anything out of order. Around nine o'clock, in late fall that area is already shows no signs of life. The last place where anything still on, is The Wellington's and even their building faces away from the building of the crime-scene. Occasional cars, or cabs drive by, but that's it. Nine o'clock too early to go home yet from the bars and restaurants, on the other hand, for regular people this time is already too late; they've finished supper, and watch TV by this time. This is the time when the least of potential witnesses are on the streets. All that police legwork added up to not even one useful leads. The police tried to bribe and lure out a possible partner-in-crime, by offering a $5.000, - reward, however even that not yielded any useful results. There were no known criminals in the area who worked with the same M.O., so they got no insider tips as to who they should look for. The investigators had no suspect, or even a hunch who could have done it.
The police could only answer three out of their five basic questions, which would solve the crime if they find the right answers: what, when, and where? They desperately needed responses to the remaining two questions: why and who?
Therefore, there was nothing else to do, then restart the whole investigation, and go over every details again, do the legwork, the interviews, and visits again, and re-examine the collected evidence, which meant, to go and try to watch the surveillance footage, with wider peeled set of eyes. Fairly soon even this work was done, they raised the reward to $10.000, - with no success. In time, the case cooled off, and new, other tasks took away the police's interest.
The "Homicide case # 1117, Robert Mezei" file, and a small cardboard box, containing the little evidence they collected quietly got back to the West Parry Sound District OPP Detachment, and ended up in a medium size, gray metal file cabinet, with a short, hand-written sign on it "UNSOLVED CASES" ?
That was about one year ago.
Chapter 5.
Katlin's airplane just touched down at the Pearson Airport in Toronto. She finished her prayer, and thanked God, that she survived the horrifying experience once again. From the ground, she always loved to see the giant planes on the ground, or watch their smooth, gentle, graceful take-off, and see all that power and strength in motion! Sitting in one however was a completely different issue! She hated flying, she was terrified by height, she never sat by the window, and during the flights she spent her time with speed praying.
For now, it was over, and she was safe for a while. She gathered her belongings, and fallowed the slowly moving crowd off the plane. A little fresh air at the door where the plane touches that "walkway tube" felt great. It took quite a walk to pick-up her luggage, and get thru the baggage check, and immigration. "Man, this airport is big" she thought and finally stepped out of the building. The noise, what comes with every big city, hit her. There were crowds of people coming and going, taxis, limos, busses, even a city-train in a chaotic mix. Her friend was supposed to pick her up. He was late, but she enjoyed her surroundings, so she did not even noticed that she had to wait. Finally, her ride arrived, hurriedly put her stuff away, than they left.
On their way out of the city, they did not talk, for the sights astonished Katlin, and his friend was concentrating his attention on the overwhelming traffic. Finally, on Hwy 400, around the King City transport station, Yanosh, her friend from Toronto finally eased up and they stopped to have a coffee and a smoke break.
"Long flight eh? Are you tired?" Yanosh asked.
"Well? what do you think??"
"So why didn't you want Robert's wife to come and pick you up again?"
"I told you Yan, she does not even know that I'm here! And it better stays that way. The
bitch wanted to move to Canada, and this is how it's ended. Just two months after my Dad died she had already let some guy move in with her, she lives and happy, like nothing happened."
"What do you expect Kat, this is not the medieval times anymore, people move on with their lives."
"I know, yes, but look: my father got shot three times, murdered, died in his own blood, the police ended the investigation for not having any lead, any useable evidence, and done. That's it! Nobody will turn any more rocks over, to try to find my father's killer. Somebody out there got away with it, and could kill again, if he has not done it already. Moreover, she goes and gets a guy into her bed in two months. So please just let me do it the way I want it!" and she was almost shaking.
"OK, OK! I get it! Though still don't know what you hope to achieve! What do you expect will happen, just because you show up?" asked Yanosh.
"I don't know! I don't! I really don't! I only knew that I couldn't sit at home anymore, and pretend that everything is OK. Just can't!"
"It seems to me like wasted money and time. You should have done something else with yo?"
"OK, stop right here! Yes, yes! Pull over please! Yanosh, listen: this is my father, my money, my business! I only asked you to give me a ride to Parry Sound! If you wouldn't want to help me, you could have told me weeks ago, when I asked you. I don't know what's wrong, but it certainly looks like you don't want me in this car. Just say the word and I will hitch a ride. I speak better English than you do, and I'm not a weasel, I will find my way there. So?"
"Oh, no Kat, everything is OK?"he said "? but to tell you the truth my girlfriend made a big deal out of this trip? she invited some new colleagues for a supper for tonight. I told her that my trip was arranged weeks earlier, she even remembered it, but she said she won't change her schedule for you to be chauffeured around?and by the way, you are my little high-school girlfriend bitch! There!"
"Really? How does she know?" Said with a poker face. Yanosh seriously looked at her for a second, than both broke out laughing.