Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (69 page)

Green shrugged. “Lunch. I never was much for small talk anyway, and I don’t want anyone to ask me how the profiling program actually works.” He glanced casually at the computer screen. “Any progress on your John Doe?”

“Almost no one saw the guy. The rooming house is owned by some Indian guy who works for Nortel and hasn’t been near the place in months. He hired a management firm to take care of it, and those guys have new building managers every month or so. There’s not much job satisfaction in running a flophouse, evidently. So I tracked down the manager, some Iraqi refugee who drives a taxi too, and he does remember the renter paying cash for a week in advance, but he doesn’t remember much else. Describes the guy as a businessman.”

Businessmen wear grey suits and carry briefcases, Green thought excitedly. “Then he really should stick in the guy’s mind! Why don’t you—”

Sullivan seemed to read his mind. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got the Iraqi coming down to the station this afternoon to try to work up a composite, but businessman or not, I’m not hopeful. The guy’s English isn’t great, and he’s going to be damn uncooperative because he didn’t want to miss his fares at peak time.”

Green retrieved Fraser’s police file from his desk and took out the police photo. “Show him this in a line-up. It might speed things up. This is ten years old, but it’s worth a shot.”

Sullivan took the picture and studied it in silence a moment, his brow cocked in surprise. “You think Matthew Fraser’s our John Doe? What would he be doing holed up in this dump? Doesn’t he have an address off Merivale somewhere?”

“Maybe he was hiding from someone.”

“And then after a week with the roaches, he suddenly flips out and torches himself?”

Green hesitated. His mind was already leaping ahead, spinning wild theories, but it was too early even for him to speculate, at least aloud. “Not necessarily.”

“Okay, so he drinks himself into a stupor and sets himself on fire by accident?”

“Or so someone wants us to think.”

True to character, Superintendent Jules adjourned the conference for lunch on the stroke of noon, and Green was just beating a hasty path to the door when Jules caught his arm. Jules had one of the beady-eyed inspectors in tow, although at second glance, this one’s eyes were more bloodshot than beady, and everything about him drooped. His moustache, his jowls, his rumpled suit—everything sagged as if under the weight of years in the trenches.

“This is Inspector Alain Levesque of the Montreal Police. He’s interested in setting up a joint initiative against the Hells Angels, and I thought we could talk over lunch.”

Levesque’s eyes regarded him with sorrow, as if he fully expected to be turned down, and Green’s heart sank. The one thing he dreaded almost as much as meetings was initiatives— in tandem with “proactive”, it was one of the favourite buzzwords of the brass. Not that crime prevention and strategic deployment of resources were not worthy ventures, but let someone else have the visions and the paradigms. In the end, criminals still committed crimes, someone had to catch them, and that was all Green had ever wanted to do.

But with Jules’ pressure on his elbow, he allowed himself to be steered upstairs to the cafeteria, where Jules ensconced them at a quiet corner table while they debated the expansion of the Quebec-based biker gangs into the nation’s capital, where the newly wealthy high-tech industry had opened up lucrative drug opportunities. The biker gangs had their own decisive enforcement methods which kept Montreal’s homicide division hopping, along with its drug squad.

It wasn’t until the afternoon break-out sessions that Green was able to escape. As he approached the squad room, he heard a chorus of voices arguing heatedly in some guttural foreign tongue. Inside, he found a senior Ident officer and Sullivan seated at the computer, surrounded by a knot of excited men. That must be the Iraqi building manager and his support group, Green surmised, here to develop the composite of the rooming house DOA . Refugees rarely went to meet anyone official, especially the police, without a bevy of advisors.

“What’s going on?” Green demanded over the din.

Sullivan looked up wearily. “Mr. Ahmad has brought some taxi-driver friends to help him, and they’re having trouble being specific enough about the features.”

“Well, did any of his friends even see the man?”

Sullivan shook his head, and Green raised his hands in exasperation. “Then clear them out.”

Sullivan gave him a “been there, tried that, how stupid do you think I am” look, but held his tongue. “He wants them here. Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere with the composite.”

“Did you show him the mug shot?”

“Not yet. I was saving it to see if I could get anything unprompted first.” Sullivan reached into the file by his side, pulled out the photo line-up he’d worked up and placed it on the desk. He gestured to the man nearest him, a tall, emaciated man with dark flashing eyes and a broken tooth. “Do you see the man among these? He may be older now, with different hair.”

The man picked up the page of photos, and the others clustered around to peer over his shoulder. Arabic flew back and forth, and Green tried to read Ahmad’s face. The man looked uncertain as he studied the photos, frustrated as he listened to his friends, and decidedly reluctant to be in this position at all. The other men sliced the air with their hands, gestured to the photo and shrugged expressively until finally, with one last examination, Ahmad tossed the sheet down on the desk. His finger landed on Fraser.

“This is the man.”

Green felt a brief stab of regret at the death of the sad, tormented man he’d been tracking, but this was superseded, in spite of his finer instincts, by triumph. Someone up there is looking out for me, he thought, as he thanked the men and left them to Sullivan while he headed down to his car. At noon, when he’d originally planned to go into battle against Bleustein, he’d had nothing but a lot of bluff and bluster, but now he had a real weapon. Attorney-client privilege was irrelevant now, because the client was dead, and surely even Bleustein would cooperate with the police in the attempt to solve his death.

It took less than one minute for Bleustein to disavow him of that notion. Bleustein’s law firm occupied half of a renovated brick Victorian off Elgin Street, across the street from the court and a short stroll to the roast beef house and the pubs where he spent the rest of his time.

“Green!” the man roared through his open office door before Green had even finished introducing himself to the pretty young secretary sitting outside. “Don’t even think I’m going to help you with that damn case! After all the shit you’ve given me?”

Green stepped over and poked his head through the door. Inside, Josh Bleustein’s office was a reflection of the man. It was oversized and expensively furnished in black leather and cherry wood, but it looked like Miami after a hurricane. Stacks of papers littered every surface; some had toppled and cascaded onto the floor. His jacket and tie lay in a heap on a chair, and his court gown had been tossed over a four-foot bronze statue of Lady Justice as if she were nothing but a cheap coat rack. Bleustein himself was kneeling on the floor, pawing through a stack of files. His white shirt was rolled up to his elbows, damp with sweat, and his jowled face was bright red. From behind folds of fat, his eyes skewered Green. Green had never met the man on his own turf, and he had to suppress a twinge of awe.

“Josh,” he replied, leaning against the door frame casually, “you dish out as good as you get, and I’m still talking to you. It’s business, right? And speaking of shit, how do you get any clients with the place looking like this?”

“Because I win, that’s how.”

“And so do I.”

Bleustein paused, then hauled himself to his feet and pulled his trousers out of his crotch. He approached to loom over Green. “Well, don’t expect a mutual admiration society.”

Green kept his own gaze steady. “Luckily, we’re both on the same side on this one, so don’t unsheathe your sword just yet. I’m worried about your client.”

“Ex-client.”

“In fact, I’m afraid he may be just that. I’m afraid he may be that burned body in the Vanier flophouse.”

“With all your fears, you should see a shrink.”

Green grinned. “Give me a break. I was talking to one yesterday, and I think I’d do better just drinking myself silly like the rest of the world. Matthew Fraser’s been ID ’d as the man who rented the room.”

For the first time, Bleustein’s gaze flickered, as if he couldn’t hide his surprise at the news. Green pressed his advantage. “The death is looking like a homicide,” he said, deciding that the situation called for tweaking the truth slightly. “I know Fraser was worried someone was following him. I know he was hoping to get a restraining order, but there’s no record of an application. Did he come to see you, or should I start hunting down your competitors in the yellow pages?”

Bleustein had recovered his footing, and his face was deadpan. “Be my guest. The guy’s a nutbar anyway, and I’m surprised no one bumped him off earlier.” He gave a dismissive shrug as if the matter were no longer of importance to him. “Yeah, he did come here—maybe a week ago? Sandy!” He shouted in the general direction of the outer door. “What day did that wacko kiddie diddler come to see me? The one with the briefcase that weighed fifty pounds?”

There was silence for a moment, broken only by Bleustein’s dangerously asthmatic breathing. “Monday, ten a.m.,” came the sweet reply.

Green did a quick mental check. Fraser’s neighbour Crystal had seen him leaving the apartment the previous Wednesday about noon, dressed as if for a business appointment. But it was obviously not with Bleustein. He waited for the lawyer to continue.

“Yeah, he’d been collecting pages and pages of crap from books and off the internet about sexual abuse and psychopaths, and he’d put together this really insane theory about what happened, and about how someone was out to get him because he knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That’s what I kept asking him, but you could never cut to the chase with this guy. He took out all these photocopied pages and newspaper clippings, all covered in yellow highlighting, and he wanted to show me every little step along the way. He was talking a mile a minute, saying he knew they knew he knew, and if he didn’t put a stop to it, he’d be six feet under.”

“You’re saying he thought someone was trying to kill him?”

“The guy’s a head case, Green! I never thought for a moment there was any truth to it.”

“Who did he figure was out to get him?”

Bleustein hesitated, and again his conviction wavered. “He talked in riddles, like he thought the room was bugged or the phone was tapped. That’s all I figured this was—the crazy thoughts of a paranoid. I didn’t take the case. The guy looked pretty tapped out—the suit he was wearing had seen a good fifteen years’ service—and I didn’t want to be the one to take his last dime.”

I’ll bet, thought Green. It wouldn’t go far towards keeping you in single-malt and Cuban cigars. No rich teachers’ union to bankroll you this time.

“Of course not,” he replied, careful to rein in the sarcasm.

“Anyway, I held my nose and defended the guy once, but to tell you the truth, I agree with the guys on the inside— pedophiles are the slime of the earth. So I packed all his crap back into his briefcase, told him if he had a complaint he should go to the police, and I turfed him out of the office.”

“Well, he never came to us.”

Bleustein shrugged. “I guess he and I shared one view in common.”

“So who was he talking about?”

“That I don’t think I should tell you. The guy was ranting and frankly, in my opinion he’s put enough people through enough grief already.”

“Josh—”

Bleustein held up his hands. “Hey listen, I’ve given you ten minutes more than you deserve. I’ll give you one more thing for free. I also told him if he knew something, he should take it to the Children’s Aid. So try them. They might give you more than I did.”

Green’s pulse leaped. The Children’s Aid was the agency responsible for setting Fraser’s whole nightmare into motion in the first place! Had it been them Fraser had headed off to see at noon on Wednesday? What on earth would make him walk back into the lion’s den?

“Thanks for the tip,” he replied, keeping the excitement out of his voice with an effort.

Bleustein was already lowering himself back down onto his knees, and he acknowledged the thanks between grunts. “Now fuck off, before someone sees me actually talking to you.”

Thursday morning arrived with a deafening crack of thunder and a cloudburst of torrential rain under a charcoal sky. Cars slowed to a crawl, and pedestrians dashed recklessly from shelter to shelter, windblown and drenched. But Green’s spirits were still high when, at nine o’clock sharp, he presented himself to the main receptionist of the Children’s Aid Society and requested to see the Executive Director. It took George Kirkpatrick precisely two minutes to extricate himself from his morning staff meeting, scurry back down to his private office, and straighten himself up in preparation to receive him. Kirkpatrick was still buttoning his jacket as the receptionist escorted Green in, but his smile was firmly in place.

“Inspector Green, is it?” he asked as he strode around his desk with his hand extended. His grip was firm but warm, as if he’d practised for years to convey just the right blend of authority and welcome. Today, however, the grip was slightly damp, and the smile looked ill-at-ease.

Over the years, Green’s work in major crimes had brought him into periodic contact with the child protection agency, although fortunately not too often, for adults usually confined their killing, robbing and bludgeoning to one another. He’d never envied the agency its job of finding that fine line between the rights of a family to be together and the need to protect children from harm. And no one was ever satisfied. With its every action scrutinized and decried by one side or the other, with lawyers snapping at its heels, the CAS was always looking over its shoulder to watch its back, and the mere appearance of a high-ranking police officer would be enough to send anxiety levels through the roof. Kirkpatrick herded him nervously to one of the easy chairs grouped around a coffee table and perched himself on the one opposite as if it were a bed of nails.