Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (9 page)

Miller’s nostrils flared, and for a fraction of time he seemed to vacillate. But then he shook his head with vigour and certainty.

He makes a lousy liar, Green thought to himself as he left. Not enough practice. He’s one of those guilty-conscience types who can’t look you in the eye when they’re hiding something.

Green was wondering what it might be as he walked back down the hall. Just when he was about to knock on the third door, he was stopped by voices within, the voices he had heard murmuring earlier, only now they were raised in anger.
Quickly he switched on his pocket tape recorder.

“That’s a cheap thing to say, Joe!” “Oh, come on, we all know why he was murdered.” The first voice was shrill, the second rich and sensual.

“I know no such thing. Jonathan was still in love with Vanessa.”

“This isn’t about love, it’s about the cock, sweetheart. The cock calls the tune. But you know that, don’t you?”

“You’re such a pig.”

The man laughed, a low, mocking chuckle. He murmured something which Green couldn’t hear, and the woman exploded.

“Get out of my office! Or I’ll scream. I swear it!”

“What, and you think lover boy will come running?”

“You reduce everything to sex, don’t you. Sex and power.”

“What else is there?”

“This. Dr. Halton’s work.”

“Like you said, baby. Sex and power.”

“That’s your warped view.”

“Okay, then why didn’t you tell the police what’s going on here?”

“Because...because it isn’t relevant.”

“Bullshit,” the man hissed. “It’s because you don’t want to lose your goddamn job with Halton. And because—” he paused for drama, “you’re not sure if Miller did it.”

“I am! I am!” she raged. Before Green had a chance to jump away, she threw open the door.

Green found himself face to face with a pair of horrified blue eyes in a tangle of brassy curls. Behind her, a dark-eyed young man leaped to his feet, the last traces of a sardonic smile fleeing from his face. No mustache, but rich black hair.

The man found his voice first. “Who the fuck are you!”

Green pushed past the blonde and strode into the room. “Inspector Green of the Ottawa Police,” he said, flipping open his notebook. He left his pocket tape recorder on, which he sometimes used to record interviews secretly, but the notebook was necessary for court. “Your names, please.”“Can you just barge in here and ask us that?” the young man blustered.

“I’m investigating a homicide. You’re within your rights to refuse to cooperate, but then, of course, I’d probably wonder why. And I can get pretty nosy.”

Green was always amazed how well that subtle threat worked with bullies. He was afraid he’d look ludicrous waving his badge around and sounding like Columbo, but somehow the effect transcended the freckles, the nose and the Zellers attire. Meekly, the two identified themselves. Joseph Difalco and Rosalind Simmons.

Green gestured to Difalco. “You wait here while I take Miss Simmons’ statement outside. If you both cooperate, we’ll be through in no time.”

The two exchanged one long, wordless stare before Rosalind turned and marched out the door. Green chose an empty office next door and gestured her to a seat. She was clearly nervous, but she remained standing and fixed him with a stubborn stare.

“I overheard some interesting things in there,” he began softly. “I think you’d better begin by telling me what the hell is going on here.”

He could almost see her mind racing backwards over the conversation, trying to recall what she and Difalco had let slip. To buy herself time, she chose to be obtuse.

“Going on? Joe and I were just talking, officer.” She widened her eyes. “Not what you think.”

“I sure didn’t think that,” Green replied drily. “Not from what I heard. So don’t play me for a fool, Miss Simmons. I haven’t the time for it. And don’t think that I’m dumb just because I’m a cop. Stop batting the eyelashes, sit down, and tell me straight why you think Miller did it.”

“Did what?”

“Murdered Jonathan Blair.” “I don’t think that!” she gasped in horror. “Why should you...?”

“Difalco said you weren’t sure if Miller did it.”

She frowned, and her bewilderment seemed genuine. Then abruptly the memory fell into place. “Oh! No, not the murder. Nothing to do with the murder, just some professional matter. Joe was just taunting me.”

“What professional matter?”

“It’s…it’s a long story and really very trivial.”

“Difalco didn’t make it sound trivial.”

“Joe can’t stand the fact that I won’t jump into his bed like everyone else. He takes pot shots at me every chance he gets.”

Green sat down in the swivel chair opposite her. “I’m waiting.”

She studied the floor, gathering her forces. Finally, she took a deep breath. “It’s just professional rivalry. Between Joe and Dave. Joe has been Professor Halton’s student for six years, and Dave just came last year. But Dave already has his Ph.D. from Stanford.” She cast him a look that could have been disdain. “That’s a top university in the States. Anyway, Joe couldn’t stand that. He said some of his research data disappeared, and he accused Dave of deliberately erasing it from his computer.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “So that Joe wouldn’t get finished so soon, I
guess. Joe’s problem is that he assumes everyone thinks like him. He thinks Dave would care if he succeeded, that Dave would be jealous of his success. That’s nonsense. Dave is a classic scientist—nose in his books, clueless about the world around him. Naïvely thinking everyone is as passionate about truth and discovery as he is. He honestly thinks Joe cares about his research for the light it will cast on the world.”

“But he doesn’t?”

She snorted. “Joe cares about the three letters after his name and how the name ‘Halton’ will look on his résumé.”

“Does Halton know about the disappearing data?”

“Oh yes. What would be the point of the accusation if Halton didn’t know about it? But I don’t know what Halton did about it. He kept it under wraps. That’s his style. He solved it, I’m sure, and I suspect he read Joe the riot act in private, but no one’s ever going to know. No hint of a scandal to threaten his grant money.”

“So Halton would believe Dave over Joe?”

She paused, her brows knitted. “I hope so. Joe’s been with him for six years, and I think Professor Halton has a soft spot for him, but I don’t think he’s naïve.” She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t mean to sound all negative about Joe, officer. He’s an obnoxious pig, and he can’t handle any woman with an IQ over 90, but he’s a bright guy. Quick-witted and charming in a boys’ locker room kind of way. Men like him.”

“He doesn’t sound like the kind of guy you’d find in an Ph.D. program, though,” Green observed. “More likely law or MBA.”

Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, and when she spoke, he thought he detected more respect. “I have wondered about that myself. But you don’t get a straight answer out of Joe. He says it’s because he gets the best pickings of the female
undergraduate groupies who cluster around Halton.”

“A macho front to hide a serious mind?” Green replied with a laugh. Rosalind laughed too, briefly forgetting why she was there, and some of the wariness left her eyes.

“How did Jonathan Blair fit into this dispute?”

The wariness returned. “Not at all. That’s why Halton didn’t want the incident mentioned. His reputation is important to him, and Jonathan Blair didn’t work with either Joe or Dave.”

“Who did he work with?” “Halton. Dave has a couple of graduate students helping him, but most of us work directly under Halton, doing our own research related to his theory. We sometimes have assistants, usually Honours students. Jonathan had…” She hesitated briefly.

“Raquel Haddad?”

She smiled, but without humour. “Raquel kind of made the rounds, in more ways than one. She was one of those undergraduate groupies I mentioned earlier. For some women, power is a great aphrodisiac.”

“And did Professor Halton sample the offerings?”

She eyed him levelly. “I thought we were talking about Jonathan Blair.”

“Jonathan Blair always seems to be the least important person in my conversations about him.”

Her eyes narrowed intently as she inspected the idea. “What a curious observation,” she said. “But you know, it’s quite true. When Jonathan first came, he created quite a stir. I mean, he had a lot of star qualities—loads of money, good looks, brains, an impressive integrity. But in a way, drama plays around him. He’s always rock stable, calm, unobtrusive.”

“Like the eye of a hurricane, maybe?”

She laughed. “My God, you’re a great improvement over the detective who was here this morning. So plodding and unimaginative. ‘Do you know anyone who had reason to kill him? When did you last see him? Did he ever say anything that led you to think he was in trouble?’”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing useful. I’ve been wracking my brains. We all have! But it’s beyond me. Unless he was murdered because he was too perfect. Kind of like Christ.”

“It’s been suggested that Difalco might have done it.”

She snorted. “Why, because of Raquel Haddad? That’s ridiculous. Jonathan wasn’t involved with Raquel.”

Green remembered a snatch of the conversation between Rosalind and Difalco and took a wild guess. “But Difalco thought he was.”

She shook her head. “It still doesn’t fit. Maybe Raquel got to Joe more than most, but no woman would ever mean enough that he would kill for her. To him, women are just playthings.”

More likely possessions, Green thought, and remembered the grisly aftermath of domestic violence wrought by men who thought like that. But he kept the memories to himself.

“Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend thinks Difalco might have been jealous of Jonathan for other reasons.”

Rosalind shrugged. “Well, she could be right. Vanessa’s even more cynical of people than I am, especially when she’s hurting. But I’ve been burnt trusting people I shouldn’t, so who’s to say? Certainly of all of us, Joe is the one with the fewest scruples. I’m not sure he’s a murderer, but he sure as hell would sell his grandmother for a piece of fame and glory.”

Privately Green thought that the crushing indictment of Joe Difalco by Rosalind Simmons and Vanessa Weeks revealed more about the women’s own psyches than it did about
Difalco’s. There was a hint of fascination in the disgust. It made him very curious to get the man under his own microscope to see what a male’s reaction to him would be.

But when he finally dismissed Rosalind Simmons and emerged into the hall, Joe Difalco was nowhere to be found.

Five

The ten detectives
had been waiting almost an hour by the time Green burst through the briefing room door, dishevelled and out of breath. Previous experience had prepared Sullivan for this likelihood, however, and he had used the time to get progress reports from the teams and to chart the useful information on the blackboards around the room. By this time he had been awake for twenty-eight hours, aside from catnaps in Green’s chair, and he was almost beyond fatigue. Artificially propped up by caffeine, he moved like a well-trained automaton, struggling to remain coherent. It took him more than twenty minutes to summarize for Green all the evidence to date.

Or lack of it, for it was a dismal harvest.

Hundreds of students had volunteered information, but not one could provide useful eyewitness testimony. No one had seen the stabbing, no one had heard it. The killing had been quick and neat, committed without hesitation or warning.

“We should be looking for a goddamn commando,” Green muttered grimly; the neatness bothered him. Amateur killers made mistakes. They didn’t know where to strike. They hesitated, blundered, panicked. They allowed screams and blows in self-defence. To have foreseen all the problems and taken steps against them, this suggested a professional who had killed before and for whom murder was a practised art. But that
meant researching Marianne Blair’s possible connections to the underworld, which would not go down well with her pal the Police Chief. Besides, the mob didn’t operate this obliquely. If they had a message to deliver, they made it loud and clear. Marianne Blair had received no threats prior to the murder, and no one had come forward to claim responsibility. Thus, there was no evidence to suggest Jonathan was being used as a pawn in a settling of accounts.

There was, however, evidence that something was very wrong in his own life. His friends described him as moody and preoccupied. Usually gentle and agreeable, he had become impatient and irritable. He wouldn’t go out with them, he wouldn’t join in the laughter and the jokes. He had broken up with his girlfriend without telling anyone why. He had spent hours locked away in his lab, pouring his energies into his dissertation but rebuffing all sympathetic inquiries into how it was going. His friends assumed he had hit a major snag in his research, but Dr. Halton assured the detectives everything had been proceeding normally.

Inquiries into his love life had yielded mixed views. Some friends thought he had been embroiled in a passionate, secret affair with Raquel Haddad, but others stubbornly refused to believe it. He had been seen with her but always at arm’s length. No one knew in what capacity she had been helping him with his research, because he avoided talking about the subject altogether.

The search of Jonathan’s university office had failed to produce a wallet or a diary, but had yielded an appointment/ address book as well as a bank book. Jonathan Blair had a savings account with a healthy four-figure balance, but there was nothing alarming in the pattern of small withdrawals and deposits which peppered the previous month. If he were into
drugs, it was minor league. The toxicology screen which had been rushed through the RCMP forensics lab had revealed no trace of drugs in his body, and MacPhail’s conclusion from the autopsy was the same. All Jonathan had in his body were the remains of cola and a grilled cheese sandwich, consumed about three hours before the stabbing.

“All right, that means he ate some supper at about seven o’clock,” Green broke in, rescuing Sullivan, whose eyes had begun to close. Green moved to an empty blackboard and turned to look at his teams. “Let’s put together his last day. He got up and had breakfast with his mother at seven a.m., then left for the university on his bike at ten to eight. Does anyone know what happened next?”