Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (109 page)

“Rather not.”

“If it is your brother, wouldn’t you want to know?”

Tom rested his forehead in his hands. “Fuck, life always finds a way to kick you in the ass, eh?”

Green said nothing. Tom smoked. Shook his head. Then said “Fuck” and hauled himself to his feet. “Can I at least smoke in your car?”

Twelve

 V
iewing dead bodies had never been Green’s favourite part of a case, albeit a necessary part when he’d been in the field. But months behind a desk had weakened his defences, and at the first hint of that peculiar morgue smell, composed of equal parts disinfectant, guts and putrefying flesh, he felt his stomach quail. He’d reached Sullivan en route from Brockville and arranged to meet him at the morgue, where he could have simply delivered Tom into Sullivan’s capable hands without even passing through the lime green doors. But to judge from Sullivan’s monosyllabic response, he was no more enthusiastic about an impromptu, after-hours visit with a three-day-old corpse than Green was. Besides, queasy stomach aside, Green was very curious to see how Tom would react.

Green made a second call from his cell phone as he, Tom and the unlucky constable from rural west district who’d drawn escort duty barrelled through the dark towards the city. It was to Dr. Alexander MacPhail. He reached the pathologist in the middle of a dinner party at which, from the sound of it, Scotch whiskey had been flowing freely for some time. Raucous laughter punctuated the background as MacPhail cursed into the phone.

“Goddamn it, lad! Check the man into the
Y
and go home to your wife and kiddies. The poor stiff will still be there in the morning, and so will I.”

Green glanced over at Tom, who was staring stonily out the window in the back. He was on his third cigarette, and his hands were shaking, probably from need of booze. The stiff might still be there, Green thought, but my next-of-kin won’t be. He’ll be on the first bus out of town, as far from Ottawa as he can get. With profuse apologies and assurances that MacPhail would be back with his guests in no time, Green stuck to his guns.

When he and Tom arrived at the morgue, neither MacPhail nor Sullivan were anywhere in sight, but they’d only been waiting a minute before the elevator pinged. Green could hear MacPhail’s angry stride all the way down the hall, and when the tall, rangy pathologist burst around the corner, his white mane defied gravity and vivid purple blotched his pockmarked face. He barely acknowledged Green’s greeting as he unlocked the morgue door and pulled on his lab coat. But even in the throes of one of his famous whiskey-fuelled tempers, his professionalism took over when he turned to Tom.

“The body is in the cold room at the moment, sir. We have a few paperwork formalities, and then I’ll have my assistant bring him into the viewing room next door. He’ll be draped in a sheet, so you tell me when you’re ready to take a look. His face has been badly damaged, so you’d best be prepared.”

Tom acknowledged the doctor’s tact with a curt nod. He was vibrating from head to toe, and his gaze flitted around the room, lighting restlessly on the stainless steel tubs and bowls, the rows of jars, and the three long, stainless steel slabs. Mercifully, there were no gurneys parked in the corners with telltale toes protruding. Green risked his first full breath of air.

The viewing room was small, airless and furnished in standard waiting room plastic. Tom barely glanced at the papers before scribbling a large, unpractised signature by the Xs that MacPhail had marked. Afterwards, Green settled into one of the chairs, but Tom leaned against the wall with his hands shoved in his pockets, affecting a casual pose.

“I been through this before, you know,” Tom said into the silence that had settled on the room. “AIDS, booze, freezing to death. It’s all part of street life. I don’t suppose Derek would ever look as bad as that. Always took fucking good care of himself, even the cowshit didn’t smell on him.”

Green had decided in the car that he would not mention Lawrence, for he wanted Tom off balance enough to shake loose a secret or two about his past. So far, the man wasn’t giving away a thing. They’d been waiting five minutes when the door swung open and Sullivan came in, followed closely by Peters. Her eyes danced, and she looked as alert and animated as Sullivan did drained. Green barely had time for introductions before MacPhail cracked open the door again.

“Ready?” His assistant wheeled in a gurney that was discreetly draped in white, but even through the sheet, the contours of a tall, bulky man could be seen.

Tom thrust himself off the wall and strode to the centre of the room, his hands still in his pockets. MacPhail glanced over the paperwork, then nodded to Tom questioningly. Tom had begun to shake again.

“Take your time, sir.”

“No,” said Tom through gritted teeth. “Do it.”

MacPhail reached up, and with a gentle, practised hand, he folded the sheet back from the face. Peters and Sullivan looked at the body, but Green watched Tom. Saw a faint twitch at the edge of his left eye, a flicker of raw horror that he fought to control. For a moment, he didn’t even breathe.

“That’s Derek,” he managed finally. “Holy fuck, that’s my brother Derek.”

“Well, that throws your cockamamie theory out the window,” Sullivan pronounced flatly as he jackknifed his bulk into the booth opposite Green at Nate’s Deli. Nate’s was a legend in Ottawa, having maintained its original menu and building on downtown Rideau Street since Green’s boyhood. Until two years ago, Green had lived only blocks away and had become such a fixture in the corner booth that the waitress never bothered to bring him a menu. Montreal smoked meat platter with fries and a side of hot cherry peppers, all washed down by a pint of draught in a frosted mug. Green was nursing this pensively when Sullivan returned from dropping Tom off at the downtown Y. Sullivan was tired and cranky, but neither detective had thought it wise to abandon the poor man at a bus stop.

Green had been mulling over the same thought before Sullivan arrived. Tom’s pronouncement that the body was Derek and not Lawrence threw his whole understanding of the case into disarray. He’d been so sure that Lawrence had murdered Derek, and that the family had locked him away to cover up the fact. He’d been so sure it was Lawrence who’d met his death in the churchyard, that he found himself at a loss. If Tom was telling the truth, they were looking at quite a different sequence of crimes.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” he asked.

Sullivan picked up Green’s mug and tossed back half of it in one grateful swig that left a foam mustache on his upper lip. He shrugged. “The guy was pretty much a basket case on the drive to the
Y
.” He held up two fingers an inch apart. “This close to hitting the bottle again, I’d say. Besides, I don’t see what he’d gain by lying.”

“Well, for starters, it stops us asking questions about what happened to Derek twenty years ago.”

“Maybe nothing happened! Did that ever occur to you, Mike? Maybe Derek went off to the States like everyone says, and maybe Lawrence just flipped out and got committed. End of story.”

Green leaned forward. “Then why did they all come back? Why was Lawrence rooting around in the farm yard that morning, looking for a treasure box he had buried twenty years ago?”

“We don’t know for sure that was him. It could have been Derek.”

Green shook his head. “Lawrence was there. The crucifix was found in the woods, and we know Lawrence had it. So he was there.”

Sullivan groaned. He was reaching for Green’s beer again when the waitress arrived with one of his own. She’d been serving there forever, still wearing a black mini skirt and a white blouse pulled tight across her breasts. The only sign of aging was the slow collection of wrinkles around her bright red lips and heavily shadowed eyes, which drank in Sullivan now with unconcealed lust.

“Hi, Sarge! Missed me, did you?”

Sullivan gave her the required grin. “Haven’t been able to sleep a wink, Alice.”

Her red lips drew back in a knowing smile. “Have to work on that. What’ll you have, love?”

Sullivan pointed to Green. “Same as him, only skip the hot peppers.”

She shook her head. “You gotta learn to live dangerously.”

“Eating with him is dangerous enough.”

Alice laughed, a throaty chuckle that made her cleavage quiver and her buttons strain, then she sashayed off towards the kitchen.

Sullivan’s smile faded as soon as her back was turned, and he slumped back in the booth. “I really just want to go home, Mike. It’s been a long day. Besides, Mary’s out showing a house, and that means Lizzie has to take Sean to hockey.”

“But we have to eat, right? And this way we can talk about the case too.”

“I don’t want to talk about the fucking case any more. Besides, don’t you have a few family obligations of your own?”

“Our kitchen is still in chaos. My end of the deal is that I pick up smoked meat, a rye and poppyseed strudel on my way out.” He grinned. “Sharon forgives a lot of sins for a fresh poppyseed strudel.”

“Sharon forgives a lot, period. The woman’s headed for sainthood.”

Green laughed. “Fortunately, not in all areas. But the sooner we figure out what the hell is going on, the sooner we both get home to our saintly wives.”

Sullivan took a deep slug of his beer and sighed. “Fine. I’m here anyway, so shoot.”

“I had a brief interview with Tom out at the farm,” Green began. “And he said the same thing Robbie told us. That Derek had sent postcards from some place in the States, but Tom’s had no personal contact with him in years. In fact, Tom said he came back to the farm house to find Derek’s address.”

“And you believe that? That doesn’t sound like you.”

Green sipped his own beer while he brought his irritation in check. He needed Sullivan to participate, not begrudge every second he had to sit there.

“Well, let’s assume it’s true and see where it takes us.” He began to tick off points on his fingers. “Let’s say twenty years ago, Tom was in love with Sophia and wrote her that letter begging for a second chance. We know Sophia disappeared shortly afterwards, and Derek never went to Berkeley as he was supposed to. That torn note suggests he had a secret lover he may have run off with. Maybe there was a huge fight over Sophia—remember that note had blood on it—and so Derek and Sophia dropped out of sight. Derek could have concealed his true whereabouts from his family and sent some postcards to reassure his mother, while he was living happily in the States with Sophia all these years.”

Sullivan signalled Alice for another draught. “I’d say you just put Tom at the top of our list of murder suspects. He never got his life back together after his big brother stole his girl, and he’s had plenty of time to build up a head of steam. So he dreams up a way to get Derek back up to the farm— probably told him about their father being sick—and he sets up the kill. Typical for a drunk. Blame everyone in the world for your failings except yourself.”

Green nodded impatiently. “I agree he’s up there. But some things don’t fit. First of all, if Tom murdered Derek, why did he
ID
the body so readily? Why not lie?”

Sullivan snorted. “He’s crafty. He’s been in the system often enough to know about dental matching and
DNA
. He knows we’d
ID
Derek eventually, and then it would look even more suspicious for him.”

“At the very least, why didn’t he say he couldn’t be sure after all these years? I watched his face, Brian. He was so shocked, there’s no way he could have made up a credible lie. If he had killed Derek, he’d have had lots of time to figure out what to say.”

“But if Tom didn’t set this up, what made Derek suddenly decide to come home again?”

“Maybe his luck changed. MacPhail said the victim had fallen on hard times recently. Maybe his life fell apart, and he came back up here looking to reconnect.”

“At exactly the same time Tom shows up looking for his address? Come on, Mike, the coincidence is preposterous. Tom’s been playing us from the beginning, and you’ve been sitting on committees too long to recognize it.”

Green held his temper with an effort. He knew it was preposterous, and it didn’t help his mood to have Sullivan point it out. But at least Sullivan, as grumpy as he was, had begun to play the devil’s advocate Green needed him to be.

Alice appeared, balancing their platters in one hand and Sullivan’s second draught in the other. Green said nothing but watched uneasily as Sullivan downed a huge swig, for Sullivan’s bloodshot eyes and the foul temper that morning still worried him. He knew Sullivan usually kept to a strict two-drink limit in order to avoid the risk of alcoholism that ran in his genes. Sullivan prided himself on the achievements and respect he’d earned as a cop, but a man can only take the stress and disappointment so long.

But Green knew Sullivan well enough to recognize this was not the time to broach the reason for his mood. He needed to rekindle Sullivan’s enthusiasm and his passion for his work, so he searched for a way to draw him in. He gave Sullivan the time to douse his french fries in ketchup and shovel a fistful into his mouth before resuming.

“Of course the coincidence is preposterous,” Green said. “But you’re forgetting an even bigger coincidence. Lawrence was there too, and in my book he’s at least as good a murder suspect as Tom.”

Sullivan paused in the act of balancing succulent slices of smoked meat on his rye and looked at Green thoughtfully. “And what would be his motive after all these years?”

“Maybe revenge for locking him away all those years?”

Sullivan set down his precariously balanced sandwich and sat back. Green was glad to see that he’d abandoned his beer and was deep in thought. “But I’ve just spent the day talking to the Brockville people about him. They describe him as gentle and kind of childlike most of the time. Maybe he’d lash out if he got desperate, but he wasn’t really capable of that kind of long-term planning.”

“But Angie Hogencamp also told me that after a month of being off his meds, he’d be getting delusional again, so anything is possible. He might have started thinking about how they all betrayed him, and all those years might have seemed like yesterday to him.”