Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (100 page)

“Not right away. He still would have had a supply of pills for a while, but then he would have gradually become less coherent.”

“Did you notify his family?”

The woman snorted, triggering a prolonged coughing fit, which left her hoarse and gasping. “We tried the number on file, but it had been disconnected. Not that it would have mattered much. His family hasn’t visited him in years.”

“Did anyone else visit him?”

“Former patients, occasionally. But we’ve checked, and none of them has seen him.”

“Might he have tried to go home?

She paused. “This was his home.”

“Would he know how to get to the farm where he grew up? Did he ever talk about it?”

“Not once.” She hesitated, and her voice softened. “I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but when the ward was closing, the team looked at moving him back home, or at least to a group home nearer home. He regressed badly at the suggestion, and his father wanted nothing to do with it. Refused to even come meet our team. Lawrence knew his family had rejected him. I can’t imagine he’d want to go back there ever again.”

Green had encountered many mentally ill people over the years, and he knew how crucial family support was to their recovery. He was beginning to feel very sorry for this poor, misunderstood, stigmatized young man. Shunned first by the village, and then by his own family.

“Any idea why they rejected him?”

“Why do families reject the mentally ill? Afraid of them, ashamed of them? Tired of dealing with them, want to be able to take that trip to Florida? You’d be surprised what a dumping ground the hospital is, Inspector.”

Cynicism aside, she had a point. He asked a few more questions about Lawrence’s personal effects and finances, both of which were virtually non-existent, then told her he’d be asking the Brockville police to show her a photo and some clothing to see whether they might belong to Lawrence. She had thawed considerably by then, and she heaved a deep, regretful sigh. “If it is him who died, I wouldn’t be surprised. Not that he wanted to die...but he didn’t really have anything compelling to live for. Wasn’t actually living much at all.”

Once he’d hung up, Green sat at his desk a moment, recalling the chronic schizophrenics he’d met in his career. Mostly street people, adrift from the anchor of meds and family support. It’s true that by normal standards they hadn’t much compelling to live for, but even the street people clung to the lives they had, deriving pleasure and pride from simple moments and never setting their sights or their hopes too high. If Lawrence had killed himself, the questions remained. Why there? Why now?

He opened the door to his office and was pleased to spot Sullivan just emerging from the elevator. He beckoned him inside. Sullivan dropped into the guest chair, stretched his long legs out, unsealed a plastic evidence bag and plunked an object on a piece of white paper on the edge of Green’s desk. Bits of dirt fell from what looked like a blackened tin can.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Green said, reaching into his desk to slip on nitryl gloves. “What’s that?”

“Someone’s secret treasure chest. Isabelle Boisvert found it in her yard, right around where our dead guy was digging. Looks like he buried it there.”

The can rattled as Green picked it up. “Have you looked inside?”

Sullivan nodded. “Someone had a very weird idea of treasure.”

Green pried the lid off and spread the objects carefully on the sheet of paper. For a moment, they both contemplated the collection in silence. The bottle caps could be explained away, as could the feather, the key and the condoms. Children collected the oddest trinkets. But the bird skull gave him pause. A child might have a passing fascination with a dead animal, might even keep a skeleton for a while, but to store it with their treasures suggested a fascination with the macabre that was a little over the top. And where was the rest of the body? The skull was perfectly intact, almost as if the bird had been decapitated with surgical precision.

What sane, normal child decapitates a bird and stores the head in their treasure box?

Only a crazy one. Green unfolded the slips of paper and popped each inside its own evidence bag. One was a smudged fragment of paper torn from a notebook “S Bus 4:30, meet me 3:00 our place”. The other was a page from a love letter written to a girl named Sophia, asking for her forgiveness and begging for another chance. The two were in different hands—the former a tight, sophisticated script and the latter a ragged scrawl.

Sullivan had been silent during Green’s perusal of the contents, and as he returned the objects to the can, he was aware of Sullivan’s questioning gaze. “This is Lawrence Pettigrew’s stuff,” Green said by way of answer. “Apparently he used to confiscate his brothers’ condoms and try to interfere with their sex lives. I don’t know what the rest of this stuff means, but it’s beginning to look as if Lawrence might be our John Doe. He’s disappeared from Brockville.”

“What about Derek’s crucifix?”

Green shrugged. “It’s possible Lawrence stole it, or expropriated it.” He gave Sullivan an update of what the group home supervisor had said. “We’ll fax John Doe’s photo down to Brockville
PD
and ask them to run it by the group home staff. If the
ID
is positive, we’ll need to send someone down.”

Sullivan nodded. “I’ll send Gibbs and Sue Peters. Give her a chance to see how we put together corroborating evidence to make an
ID
.”

“Her and Gibbs in the car together for two hours?” Green winced. “Cruel and unusual punishment for our Gibbsie. I think you should go with her.”

Sullivan frowned at him. “I’ve got a bunch of other cases on my plate.”

“But I think Sue Peters can learn a lot from you. And she needs all the help she can get.” And with her on the case,
CID
needs all the help it can get as well, he added to himself.

“She’s got to learn some time, and this is a case she can’t really screw up,” Sullivan said.

“Still, it is your case.”

Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “Oh, is it now?”

“Yeah, and you can use your Irish charm on this Mrs. Hogencamp. She’s a little skittish, and we need her nice and chatty. Peters would shut her up tighter than a clam.”

Sullivan shrugged and hauled his large feet off Green’s desk. “First, I’ll fax the photo down to Brockville and make sure our dead guy is Lawrence. Then I’ll go tell my staff sergeant that the inspector might be ordering me into the boonies for the day just to
ID
a suicide. Make him feel important.” He restored the tin can to the evidence bag and carefully resealed it. “If I take Peters instead of Gibbs, he’ll think he’s done something wrong, you know.”

“I’ve got other plans for Gibbs.”

Green had hoped to get to Gibbs before the office grapevine did, but by the time he had a free moment, it was too late. He found the young detective hard at work at his computer, but his avoidance of Green’s eyes betrayed his hurt. Green was reminded once more of what a good cop Sullivan was; he knew his men, and despite his bear-like physique and his country boy manner, sensitivity was his greatest strength. Green did not have Sullivan’s tact, nor his ease with emotion. He simply pulled a chair up to Gibbs’s desk and leaned over.

“So? Any luck?”

Gibbs stared at his screen without answering for a moment, then seemed to draw himself together. He straightened his long, gangly form and picked up his notes.

“What do you want first, sir? The success or the failure?”

“The failure. Then we’ve nowhere to go but up.”

Gibbs didn’t smile. “Derek Pettigrew’s whereabouts are a complete mystery. Not only can I find no one who’s seen him in the past few days, but no one’s seen him, period. It’s like this guy dropped out of sight twenty years ago. There’s no record of anyone with that name and birth date being registered at Berkeley or any other California university.”

“He could have gone to some other state or moved anywhere in North America.”

Gibbs cast him a brief, triumphant glance. “But no one with that name and birth date has ever filed a tax return or applied for a passport in either the U.S. or Canada.”

Green tried to make sense of this latest surprise. Plenty of people dropped out for lots of reasons, most of them nefarious. Criminals eluding the authorities, people escaping an unpleasant past or unsavoury associates, occasionally children or spouses hiding from their families. Certainly the Pettigrew family had been far from exemplary, and Derek had broadcast that he was never coming home again, but nothing the investigation had uncovered so far suggested he’d go into hiding to avoid them.

“Do we have any record of this guy in our system? Some young offender stuff from long ago—suspicious contacts, anything that suggests he may have gotten in over his head with some bad guys? Can you check with the
OPP
and the
RCMP
?”

Again that faint look of triumph. “I’ve checked that, sir. So far, nothing. He was an excellent student all through school and university, although he changed his major from physics to philosophy in his third year.”

Green contemplated that information curiously. Changing from a hard science to the intangible study of truth suggested that Derek had undergone at least a mild identity crisis in his penultimate year, which had forced him to rethink his goals and aspirations. But such soul-searching was common— indeed, almost a rite of passage—for a serious student. Remembering Derek’s quiet, thoughtful grad photo, Green could see such a youth being drawn to the fundamental truthseeking of philosophy.

Changing one’s intellectual identity, however, was hardly the same as changing one’s physical one. In any case, he would have had to register at Berkeley as Derek Pettigrew if he’d hoped to get in.

“Bob, can you get Berkeley to check their admissions for 1984? See if in fact Derek Pettigrew applied and was expected to attend?”

Gibbs reddened as an irrepressible smile crept across his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ve put that request to them already, sir, but it will take a while.”

“Good work. And I wouldn’t classify this as a failure. We’ve learned some very peculiar things about Derek Pettigrew. Keep it up. Now—the good news?”

“Tom Pettigrew. He’s been much more visible. Toronto Police have a long sheet on him, mostly summary offences like theft under and causing disturbances. He’s also had a few businesses go belly-up, and he’s reneged on payments to creditors. Toronto faxed me this.”

He unfolded a long print-out and Green scanned down the list of Tom’s contacts with the Toronto police. They showed the sorry state of Tom’s life. Police contacts had been few in the first ten years, but over time he had become involved more frequently in brawls, public intoxication, loitering and disturbing the peace. He’d been in and out of the Don Jail five times in the past year alone, but only one stint had been substantial; thirty days for his fourth conviction for theft under. Shoplifting from a liquor store on Jarvis Street.

Scanning to the bottom of the list, Green saw that his most recent incarceration had been only a month ago, for causing a disturbance. He’d been released the next morning. As if reading his mind, Gibbs pointed to the entry.

“I’m trying to contact the officer who handled the case, sir, to see if he knows where Tom is living. He’s listed as no fixed address, but he probably has his unofficial place. The officer will call me when he gets on duty this evening.”

Gibbs had thawed considerably as he related the fruits of his labour, and now Green smiled at him. “If and when the Toronto police find him, I want them to pick him up, and I want you to go down there to interview him.”

“By myself, sir?”

Seeing a mixture of pleasure and apprehension on Gibbs’ face, Green shook his head. “If Toronto finds Tom before Brian heads back from Brockville tomorrow, I’ll send Brian on to meet you in Toronto. Always better to have two officers in on an interview.”

Gibbs smiled like a puppy who’d been tossed a treat. Sometimes I handle things not too badly, Green thought, but we really must do something to toughen this boy up.

With both Gibbs and Sullivan dispatched, Green tried to settle back down to his paperwork, but the excitement of matching overtime requests with policy directives paled in comparison to the lure of missing Pettigrews. His thoughts returned to the strange tin can Isabelle Boisvert had unearthed in the thicket in her yard. Green recalled that the ground had been all dug up in patches over the interior of the thicket where the dead man had been seen, suggesting that he was searching for something. The tin can was caked with dirt and firmly rusted shut, as if it had been buried long ago.

Assuming it was poor crazy Lawrence who had hidden the tin before he was sent to the psychiatric hospital, and assuming none of the other family members had known of its existence, it was almost certainly Lawrence who had been snooping in the yard and Lawrence who lay dead at the bottom of the church tower. The supervisor in Brockville had said he’d been missing for six weeks, and MacPhail had indicated that until recently the man had been well cared for. Which Lawrence certainly would have been, courtesy of Ontario’s health care system.

Had Lawrence left Brockville and made his way by bus, thumb or foot all the way back to his childhood home? If so, why? What in that strange tin can collection had he been desperate to retrieve after all these years? Why had he fled to his old church? And most importantly, had he in his despair been driven to jump, or had someone pushed him?

Green pondered the contents of the tin can. A feather, a half dozen caps, some condoms, an antique key, a note, and a fragment of a love letter to a girl called Sophia. The handwriting of the letter had an uneven, childish quality, with spelling mistakes galore. Perhaps Lawrence had written the letter when he was a young, bumbling teenager hopelessly in love with Sophia. And perhaps he had kept that love alive through twenty years, dreaming of the day he returned to find her waiting for him.

Except she wouldn’t have been waiting, of course. While he languished in a psychiatric hospital, suspended forever in adolescent yearning, she had probably married, borne children, and become deeply immersed in a rich, demanding family life.