Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (164 page)

Gibbs shuffled his feet. “I hope it...it hasn’t changed her. Taken away her nerve.”

“Sue Peters? Not on your life!” Green spoke with more confidence than he felt, but for now it was what they all wanted to believe. “Now let’s get at that sonofabitch who put her there.”

Green had seen so many faces of Weiss over the past week that he wasn’t sure who was going to walk through the interview door, but he prepared himself as best he could. He stationed Jones unobtrusively just inside the door and placed two molded chairs at right angles. A notebook and pen lay on the small, square table between them. Simple, intimate, yet professional.

Weiss was wearing nondescript cellblock scrubs that hung on him, several sizes too big, but he’d been allowed to shave and comb his hair. Green suspected he had not received the most compassionate treatment from the guards in the cell block—stabbing your partner in the back would not earn you points among your fellow officers—but at least they had allowed him to salvage some of his dignity.

Even so, he looked as if he had precious little dignity left when he shuffled into the room. His blue eyes, only last week so cocksure, were red and puffy, and his shoulders sagged as if the world weighed heavily on them. Green hoped it did. He felt a flash of anger at the man, and he waited in silence until it receded. Then, summoning up a dispassion he didn’t feel, he gestured to a chair.

“Sit down, Jeff.”

Weiss sat and only then raised his head to look around. His eyes passed over Jones as if he were invisible, then came to rest on the camera lens in the corner. “Do we have to do that?”

“You know the drill, Jeff.” For the record, he explained the legalities of videotaping, repeated the Charter warning, and made the formal introductions for the tape.

Weiss gripped his head in his hands and shook it slowly back and forth. “I just need you to believe me.” He flicked his hand at the camera. “They won’t. The fucking brass won’t.”

“This is not a private confessional, Weiss. Just so you know, the
OPP
has connected you to the call that tipped Hamm off about Peters. The Petawawa convenience store owner
ID
’ed you. And the Tim Hortons manager here on Bank Street picked you out as the one asking about Twiggy last Thursday. It’s looking pretty bad. Obstruction of justice, kidnapping...”

Weiss jerked his head up as if stung. “I didn’t kidnap Twiggy! I took her to keep her safe!”

Great job you did, Green thought drily. He softened his voice with an effort. “Okay, maybe it would help if you start at the beginning.”

“With Patricia Ross?”

“With Ian MacDonald.”

He glanced at Green in bewilderment. “I don’t see what MacDonald has to do with it.”

“Weiss, stop dicking around. I know about MacDonald’s actions in Croatia. I want to know your part in it.”

For a moment, Green feared his loss of patience would jeopardize the interview, to say nothing of the case if Weiss’s lawyer got hold of it. But it seemed to focus the man. He stared at the table and ran his tongue around his parched lips. “Croatia. Fuck. I was way over my head in Croatia, but the
UN
needed police who could speak the language, and my mother was from Sarajevo. I grew up in the Croatian community in North York, and I figured it was a chance to see my roots.” He shut his eyes and winced as if at the memory. “They should never have put Macdonald on clean-up duty in Medak. The fucking Croats... They wiped out everything. Over three hundred homes destroyed, almost two hundred animals slaughtered, not to mention the mutilated people. So when I came across the dead Croat soldiers, I didn’t know what to make of it. I mean—this wasn’t just some combatants shot in a skirmish. The guys’ heads were obliterated. Then a couple of local Serb villagers who’d been hiding in the hills told me it was a blue helmet. I was afraid one of our guys was maybe going off the deep end, so I reported it to my unit commander.”

“Blakeley.”

Weiss nodded. “The best commander I’ve ever had. A take charge, buck-stops-here kind of guy who stood up for his men. Blakeley told me the Serbs were probably lying to protect one of their own, and who could blame them anyway? He told me to leave it with him.”

“So you never knew how he handled the situation?”

“No, but whatever he did, he backed MacDonald up. Notlike the kind of chicken shit superior who leaves you hanging out to dry when things get rough for you.”

Green pondered the story. It corroborated what Blakeley had said, but if it was true, why had Daniel Oliver accused Blakeley of betrayal? Something didn’t make sense. “Did you know MacDonald killed himself two years later?”

“Dick Hamm told me.”

“Did you know Hamm back then?”

“Just by reputation.”

“Which was?”

“A hardass, but another guy you want in your corner when the bullets start flying.” Weiss’s jaw tightened, and tears brimmed in his eyes. “Shows you how fucking wrong I was.”

Green sensed they were finally hovering on the brink of the real story. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “So tell me how you got into this mess, Jeff.”

“What’s the use? I’m going down. I deserve to go down.”

“Maybe. But I have some discretion here. You said you wanted someone to understand. Try me.”

Weiss brushed his hand through his blond hair, which now hung in strings rather than curls. Sucking in a deep breath, he began. “I volunteered for John Blakeley’s election campaign, that’s how it started. I hadn’t seen the man since Medak, but like I said, he was a real leader. The Liberal Party and the senior military brass have been jerking the army around for years because no one understood what peacekeeping missions were really like, and the public hasn’t got the balls to pay the price, either in taxes or lives. Oh, everyone is paying lip service right now to funding the military, because of the dangers in the Afghanistan mission, but when it comes to forking out the money so the guys can do the job properly, nobody wants to pay. And the first time we get into a firefight over there or suffer a few casualties, suddenly the public and the politicians are screaming ‘Oh this is not the Canadian way.’ They just don’t understand you have to fight for right.

“Usually I vote Alliance and Conservative, but you know, one sleaze bag is much like another. When I read about Captain Blakeley putting his hat in the ring, I thought there’s a guy we really need on Parliament Hill. I know Blakeley wasn’t too happy to have me on his team, but I just put it down to our disagreement in Croatia. But Dick Hamm persuaded him to let me work with him—”

“Hamm was working on Blakeley’s campaign?”

“Yeah, but in the background, so the military looked like it was keeping out of politics. Hamm did most of the private security work, watched Blakeley’s back, that kind of thing. And that’s where he thought I’d be useful.”

“How did you make contact with Hamm initially?”

“I went to Blakeley’s campaign headquarters to volunteer.Met his wife Leanne, who kind of ran things behind the scenes there. She said I could really make a contribution doing security. She introduced me to Hamm.”

“Did Hamm know about your past history in Croatia?”

“Oh yeah, I told him that’s why I really admired the man.” Weiss shook his head in disgust. “Fuck. I was suckered every step of the way, by both of them.”

“So you did security work with Hamm?”

“On my days off. Just bodyguard stuff, working the crowds at rallies... I thought that’s all it would be. Until...” Weiss broke off.

Green leaned in. “Until what?”

Weiss tried to take a sip of water, but the glass trembled so violently he put it down untouched. “Politics can be dirty. The Conservatives were running scared, because they saw there wasa chance they could lose the riding, so a lot of people wanted to bring Blakeley down. I don’t know how else to explain...what I did.”

Green let the silence lengthen. He was not about to help the man with his unburdening. The seconds ticked by in the claustrophobic room. Finally, Weiss sucked in a deep breath and began to recite, like an officer giving a report. “At seven a.m., last Monday, Dick Hamm placed a phone call to my residence just as I was heading out for work. He said there wasa situation that could compromise John Blakeley’s election. He said a woman had been found dead by the aqueduct in Ottawa and that Blakeley’s name might get dragged in, because he’d had a drink with the woman the night before.”

Seven a.m. Green wracked his memory. The 911 call had come in at 6:37, less than half an hour before. “Did he say how he knew about it?”

“He used to follow Blakeley whenever he was concerned for his safely. This woman had called Blakeley for a meeting. Hamm told me it was for old times’ sake because Blakeley had known her fiancé years ago. At the time, I thought it was a crock. I figured he’d picked up a piece of ass in the hotel, and now we had to do damage control.”

Weiss’s bloodshot eyes held a hint of the old defiance, as if he were willing Green to call him naïve, yet the explanation was just plausible enough to work. Green retrieved the thread without comment. “So Hamm was tailing Blakeley?”

Weiss nodded. “Blakeley called a cab for the woman, who was Patricia Ross, of course. Then a few hours later the woman turns up dead not five minutes from where he left her. Hamm asked if I could keep an eye on the investigation so that he could handle any of the fallout if Blakeley’s name came up.”

“And you agreed to that?” Green allowed incredulity to creep into his voice.

Weiss rubbed his hands through his hair again. “He didn’t ask me to interfere in the investigation, just give him a heads up.”

“Didn’t it ring any alarm bells that Hamm knew who she was and what had happened to her barely half an hour after her body was discovered?”

The defiance faded from his eyes. He shook his head wretchedly. “Hamm is so focussed, he sucks you right in. He said he’d thought she was up to something, so he’d kept her under surveillance as a precaution.”

“And watched her die?”

“He told me he’d seen her leave the hotel with some other guy as soon as Blakeley left and head towards the aqueduct. Then he checked back in the morning when he saw the squad cars arriving.”

As an explanation, it was just barely credible, but Weiss had been a fool not to be suspicious once the facts began to emerge. To judge from the man’s distraught expression, he agreed.

“So you got yourself on the case and kept Hamm informed,” Green said.

“Just if it might have an impact on John Blakeley.”

“Which it did, once you and Peters went up to Petawawa.”

“Hamm said Patricia Ross had been up to Petawawa trying to see John, but he wasn’t there. He’d heard she was blabbing in bars around town, and when she’d had too much to drink, she might have mentioned Blakeley’s name. So Hamm wanted me to let him know if Sue and I uncovered anything. He gave me his private security line.” He broke off, his jaw working. “I never dreamed...”

“What did you think Hamm was going to do with the information?”

Weiss flushed. “I don’t know. Create a diversion? Interrupt Sue?”

“You phoned a person of interest in the investigation, and told him what the detective was doing and where. Did you not ask yourself what his motives were? Did you not think maybe you’d put her in harm?”

“No!” Weiss shoved his chair back against the wall. “Fuck, do you think I would have done that if I knew what he’d do?”

No, you were just going to screw up a police investigation, Green thought, allowing his eyes to convey his disbelief. Come on, you idiot, you’ve been on the streets, you’ve even been overseas. You can’t tell me you’re that naïve.

“Why did you obey the request, Jeff? Hamm had no rank over you.”

“Because I believed in Blakeley! I thought Patricia Ross was just a drunken hooker, and that because some random sicko killed her, a good man’s political career was going down the toilet.”

And what’s one washed-up whore compared to the good of the country, Green thought. He shook his head in slow disbelief. “You’ve been a cop now what? Almost twenty years?”

Weiss thrust back from the table and jumped up. “I knew this was a waste if time! Just get the charges over with!”

Green gestured calmly to the chair. “Sit down, Jeff. We’re not done yet. I want the whole story. How did Hamm explain the request?”

Weiss hesitated, staring at Green through reddened, defiant eyes. Slowly he righted his chair and sat back down. “He said all he wanted to do was protect Blakeley.”

“When did you realize Hamm himself was guilty?”

“When Sue Peters was attacked. That’s when I realized I had truly and royally fucked up.”

“Why didn’t you tell us then?”

“I had no time. The
OPP
and the paramedics were all over me, and all I could think of was getting Sue to hospital.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me that night at the hospital?”

Weiss shifted. “Because by that time I’d remembered that homeless woman.”

Green hadn’t been expecting an honest admission that Weiss was simply protecting his own ass, but nonetheless his bizarre answer startled him. “Twiggy?”

“I knew Hamm had her in his sights. He said she’d seen Blakeley with Patricia outside the hotel, and he was afraid she’d recognize him from the papers. She hoarded papers, he said. He asked me to find out more about her. Once I realized the truth, and how ruthless he was, I knew he’d come after her. I couldn’t think how else to protect her but to get her away from here.”

Green gritted his teeth. “Why didn’t you inform us, Jeff? We could have picked her up.”

“I needed time to think! I knew you wouldn’t believe I had nothing to do with the attacks. My career was down the tubes...my pension, my benefits, all the stuff I’ve put nearly twenty years of my life into. And while you were busy throwing the book at me, he’d get to her.”

“You don’t give us much credit, Jeff. You could have brought her in yourself, and kept her safe.”

Weiss jerked his head up and his eyes flooded. “Do you think I don’t know that? That if I’d had the guts, she might still be alive? But you don’t give him enough credit! He’s fast, he’s deadly, and he strikes before you even know he’s there.”