Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (135 page)

Alarm flitted across Anne’s face. “Have you ever eaten one?”

He managed to shake his head, his voice still somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

“Well,” said Norrich, “you haven’t lived until you’ve had an honest to God Nova Scotian lobster. Steamed in ocean brine, no spices or fancy sauces. Just a bowl of lemon and melted butter to dip it in.” He lifted the bottle of wine which sat at his side and held it across the table towards Green. “Here, I think you need a good dose of extra courage. Then you won’t notice how hard it is to get any food out of the horny bastards.”

They’d started the evening with scotch and were now well into their second bottle of wine. Since Green’s idea of tying one on was a second beer with his smoked meat platter at Nate’s Deli, he was already seeing double. Perhaps there weren’t quite as many legs as there seemed to be, he thought in a brief lucid moment, but nonetheless he held out his glass gratefully. It was the only way he was going to get through this course.

Green was not much of an observant Jew, particularly where the Kosher laws were concerned, and he loved his Chinese shrimp and barbequed pork as much as the next Jew, but he thought the rabbis were on the right track in forbidding this menace. A vision of Woody Allen chasing the lobster around the kitchen in the movie
Annie Hall
popped into his mind, and he almost choked on his healthy slug of wine.

Anne was a solicitous hostess and fluttered around tying his bib and showing him how to crack open the shell to extract the meat. When the head and some green insides spilled out onto the white lace tablecloth, she spirited them miraculously from view. With no feelers and beady eyes to contend with, he was able to concentrate on getting some nourishment.

As he struggled, Norrich regaled him with stories about growing up in a remote fishing village, where his father had been the only
RCMP
presence in town. The man grew to be a legend over the course of the lobster. After Norrich had popped the cork on the third bottle, Green decided he’d better steer the conversation to the case before they both sank into a stupor. He had spent part of the afternoon reading Norrich’s reports on his visit to Daniel Oliver’s reserve unit and had been unable to glean a single useful fact about the man. Not only was there no mention of a possible connection to IanMacDonald’s death, but there was no hint that Norrich had even asked about it. Surely there were tidbits Norrich had picked up that he’d chosen to leave out of his official reports.

Green couldn’t think clearly enough to be subtle, so he plunged straight in. “I saw from the reports that you went out to the West Nova Scotia Regiment to ask about Daniel Oliver. Did you find out anything about his peacekeeping tour?”

Norrich blinked and stared at the table cloth as if trying to remember where he was. “No, it was just a routine inquiry. ‘Did he have any enemies? Did he mention any conflicts?’ That kind of thing. But since Oliver had left the reserves a year earlier, they’d pretty much lost touch with him. Waste of time from the investigation’s point of view, but I met a great group of guys.”

“Did you speak with any of his overseas mates?”

“No, but none of the regiment was overseas with him. He’d served with a battalion from the Princess Pats which was based in Winnipeg, but it had reservists from all across the country.”

“What about his friend Ian MacDonald?”

“Ian who?”

“MacDonald. Served with him in Croatia. He was killed two years after coming home. He was in the same reserve outfit. Did you ask about him?”

Norrich peered at him balefully. Despite the haze of booze, he obviously sensed the implied rebuke in Green’s tone. “Don’t see how the hell that was relevant.”

Which means you didn’t even ask, asshole, Green thought. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Why did Daniel Oliver leave the reserves?”

Norrich picked up a claw and splintered it with vigour. “He developed a serious attitude problem. He picked fights with friends, said none of them knew what the hell being in the army was all about. He was disrespectful of superior officers, derelict in his duties. The way the fellows on the base talked, if he hadn’t left, he might have been in for some disciplinary action. He was becoming a disgrace to the uniform.”

Green filtered his thoughts through his anger, trying for some tact. “I know a few guys who served with the
UN
police in Yugoslavia, and they had some trouble readjusting when they came back. And we know from highly publicized cases like Romeo Dallaire that a lot of soldiers encountered situations overseas that haunted them when they came back. Didn’t Oliver’s behaviour ring any alarm bells with his regiment?”

Norrich slapped the table impatiently. His plate jumped, and his cuff came to rest in a pool of grease. Wordlessly Anne jumped up, rescued both men’s plates and disappeared into the kitchen. “I think all this stress stuff is a load of horseshit. It’s their job, for Christ’s sake! It’s why they signed up, and if they don’t have the stomach for it, they should just pack up and leave the job to the men who do. Last thing a soldier needs, just like a cop, is a mate who freezes up under fire and secondguesses whether he should act. It’s an insult to all the brave men who’ve ever served their country to pander to these guys and offer excuses. Worse, it makes them doubt themselves. Makes them wonder if they’ve got what it takes to be a hero when the shit hits the fan. A soldier, just like you and me, has to act. Not analyze or feel or whatever other lily shit the shrinks have come up with for our own good.”

His jowls quivered, and he had turned a dangerous purple. In the kitchen, Green heard dishes clattering, and he wondered if Anne was deliberately staying out of her husband’s way. His own very personal outrage threatened to overpower him, and he debated the wisdom of continuing, but in defence of all the police officers and emergency workers he’dknown, he tried to find a dispassionate response.

“No one questions their heroism or their ability to act when they need to. But with the guys I knew, it was the aftermath that was tricky. When they had time to think—”

Norrich slapped the table again. “The problem is Canadians are soft! We haven’t had a war on our own soil in nearly two hundred years, and two generations have grown up never feeling the threat of any war. We’ve pampered them at home and at school. Car pools and after-four programs, and when they grow up, welfare and unemployment insurance and health care. What the hell’s left to fight for? So when trouble hits, there’s no backbone. Hell, most of the world sees more trauma—”

The kitchen door burst open, and Anne came out carrying a massive platter mounded with lemon meringue pie. She had a determined smile on her face, but her eyes glittered with warning.

“Enough shop talk, gentlemen. You wouldn’t want a good pie to go to waste in the heat of discussions. Mike, would you like some tea? Or coffee perhaps?”

Green seized on the latter offer with gratitude. A dull ache was beginning to replace the spinning inside his skull. While they had coffee and dessert, Anne skilfully steered the conversation to harmless realms. Although Norrich continued to sputter and huff, his colour gradually returned to a dull pink. As soon as he could respectably do so, Green rose to say his goodbyes.

Norrich had been drooping over his Bailey’s, and he lifted his head in surprise. “Here, I’ll drive you.”

Fortunately he seemed to have exhausted all spirit of argument, for he accepted Green’s hasty refusal and merely propped himself in the doorway to wave goodbye as Green climbed into a cab. Cruising through the neat, tree-lined suburbs towards downtown, Green drew a deep, cleansing breath and glanced at his watch. Just past ten o’clock. There was nothing to do in his hotel room except go to bed, but it was too early, especially with his biological clock still set on Ottawa time.

Part of him longed to curl up in a warm bed and phone home, but Sharon would still be out at work, and a conversation with Hannah would last all of two minutes. Besides, another part of him was restless. Ill at ease. More disturbed by Norrich’s passionate accusations than he cared to admit. Norrich was the last person who would have noticed any troubling undercurrents between the soldiers who were the pride of the nation. Green didn’t relish more alcohol or more conversations with drunks, but there were places to visit and questions to ask that could only be done at night. He fished out Kate McGrath’s business card and punched in her cellphone.

“Kate? How would you like to meet me for a drink? Dress for the trenches. I hear the Lighthouse Tavern is a rough place.”

NINE

 C
alling the Lighthouse rough was like calling Baghdad unsettled. It didn’t nearly do credit to the place. The raucous blend of music, raunch and shouting could be heard from a block away every time the door burst open to spit another drunken patron out into the street. Green and McGrath pushed through the swinging saloon doors into a dimly lit cave of scarred tables and pockmarked walls, murky with smoke and rancid with the stink of booze and sweat. A bar ran down the middle, separating the pool tables from the strip club. Serious drinkers were propped up along the bar, while others lolled around tables littered with beer, leering at the young girl on the brass pole. She was decked out in leather and black lace, just getting started on her routine.

Kate McGrath was the only other woman in the place. Fortunately, she had told Green to ditch the tie and jacket, but even with his shirt unbuttoned and his undershirt hanging out, he was in a league of his own. Heads swivelled in unison as they walked in.

“I guess there’s no point in our trying to be undercover,” Green muttered.

“Jeez,”she replied, her hand instinctively covering her nose. “It’s gone downhill even in the last ten years. It was always a blue collar bar and proud of it. No knotty pine tables or amber microbrews here. But I’m not sure even your most hard-bitten sailor out for a night with his mates would choose this place any more.”

He glanced at her. She was wearing a no-nonsense athletic jacket, jeans and walking boots, but she hung back in the entrance to the pool room, scanning the tables uneasily.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

His question seemed to challenge her. A frown flitted across her brow, and she squared her shoulders defensively. “I’m a cop, inspector, not a date.”

He opened his mouth, but before he could think of suitable words to extricate himself, she strode up to the bar and picked a stool by the wall. He wanted to say that his question was no reflection on her capability as a police officer, but merely an admission of the obvious. That they were two plainclothes officers with more brains than brawn, walking into an unknown, potentially hostile situation. Circumstances, not gender stereotypes, advised caution.

If he were honest, though, he had to admit that sex played a role. He was a bit drunk, and his defences were down. Women had always been his weakness, and tonight, after a trying evening with a lobster and a loutish host, Kate McGrath had seemed the perfect antidote. He’d invited her as much for her company as for her professional assistance with the case.

He was still sufficiently sober not to say so, however, but instead joined her at the bar, where she had already ordered a Keith’s and struck up a conversation with the bartender. She cocked her head towards Green brusquely.

“Rob, this is Inspector Green of the Ottawa Police. Rob was here the night Daniel Oliver was killed.”

Rob was a tank of a man with a cauliflower nose and a paunch that ballooned over his apron. He flicked Green an oblique glance from under one bushy white eyebrow, then continued pulling the pint of Keith’s.

“I’m hoping you can answer a few questions for me,” Green began.

“What’s it to you?”

“Someone murdered Patricia Ross in Ottawa three days ago.”

Both bushy eyebrows shot up. “No shit. How?”

“Strangled, by a powerful man who crushed her vertebrae like twigs. The same kind of power that killed her fiancé with a single blow,” Green added, varnishing the truth a little, for he was convinced there was a connection. Someday he’d get the evidence to back it up.

Rob said nothing for a moment, then turned to a young man who was collecting empties from the counter. “Sal, take over.”

He gestured the two detectives to an empty table at the back of the pool room. It was littered with bottles, but he sat down without bothering to clear them.

“This is where Daniel was hit,” McGrath said as she pulled back a chair. Out of the corner of his eye, Green saw her wipe the chair surreptitiously, but his attention was focussed on the bartender. The big man’s face was set.

Green’s instincts quickened. “You’ve got something to tell me, don’t you.”

Rob leaned his massive forearms on the table, displaying an elaborate collage of snake tattoos in vivid red and black. He fixed his dark eyes on Green. “In a place like this, you hear things. Guys drink, they blab, they brag, and sometimes the truth has nothing to do with it. Daniel Oliver’s death was the talk of this place for months. Lots of guys knew and respected him, because he was a genius with engines, and he’d seen real combat. He became almost like a legend. Guys said the man who
KO
’d Daniel with one punch must have been some kind of pro—a championship boxer, a tenth-dan black belt in karate. Or a special forces commando.”

A roar rose from the crowd in the club section. The bra must have come off, Green thought, momentarily distracted. He resisted the urge to look as Rob paused to scan the crowd with a practised eye. Then, apparently satisfied that all was under control and that no one was paying them any attention, Rob resumed.

“We get a lot of servicemen in here, usually on two-day leaves, and all they want to do is get hammered and laid. It’s a word of mouth place, like a home away from home.”

Green glanced around the grubby room. His disbelief must have showed, because the bartender’s eyes grew hooded. “It’s going through some changes.”

“So, are you saying someone recognized our killer after all?”