Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (141 page)

“Monday?” He paused only fractionally. “I was at my office, in a meeting with General Stubbing and nine other senior officers and civilians. I can get them to make formal statements if that would be helpful.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Peters saw Mr. Steroids jot the information down. The first note he’d taken in the entire interview. Did he notice that the guy had barely paused to think?

“Thank you,” she said. “The general’s statement should be sufficient.”

Finally, the dickhead blinked. Or rather, set the coffee tray down with a clatter. Gotcha, she thought gleefully, and jotted the lapse in her notebook. When she looked up, he was watching her warily.

“One more question, Colonel. Where were you on Sunday April 23rd, between six p.m. and six a.m.?”

This time the slick bastard didn’t even pause for breath. His alibis seemed to be right at his fingertips. “Here, with my wife. We sat in this very spot for dinner and at dusk we went inside. She to watch
TV
and I to deal with three hours of paperwork, after which we went to bed. I did not awaken until 0500 hours. Too late to travel to Ottawa, I suspect.”

Peters made a show of glancing around, even though there was no sign of anyone else. “Is your wife here this afternoon?”

“No, Sandra works in town. Do you want her to send you a statement as well?”

“No. I’d prefer to take it myself. What is her work address?”

He realigned the coffee spoons as he rattled off directions to an address on Petawawa Boulevard. Steroids wrote down every word, and Peters stood up to leave. She thanked him for his cooperation and handed him her card, according to her detective training. As she headed back towards the car, she resisted the urge to look back. Wondering if the dickhead was already racing inside to put in a warning call to his wife. Rallying the troops, so to speak.

As she and Steroids headed towards Petawawa’s main street, she took the time to observe the surroundings, looking for sleazy hangouts the soldiers would love. She was quick to discover that it was not your typical Ontario town. Almost none of its streets went in a straight line where you thought they should, and businesses seemed to be scattered helter skelter along the way; car dealers next door to banks and pizza joints, old Victorian cottages next to strip malls. Maybe it was because it had never been a town on its own, but had spread like a drunken spider’s web from the big military base at its core.

Soldiers in combat fatigues were everywhere. So, surprisingly, were election placards. The drive through Renfrew County en route to Petawawa had taken them through solid Conservative blue countryside, but here in the town there seemed to be a competition of one-upmanship between Tory blue signs and Liberal red. Was it the influence of the military or of the scientists in Chalk River Nuclear Research Facility just upriver?

“It looks like a close race up here,” Steroids commented, like he’d read her mind.

Peters tried to decide if it was worth replying. She was sick and tired of politics, and there was still another two weeks of media overkill before it would be over. “They’re all a bunch of crooks,” she said. “It blows my mind that some people still vote Liberal. How much of our hard-earned tax dollars do they have to dish out to their pals before people get the message?”

He opened his mouth, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to argue, but just then they whizzed past the strip mall housing Sandra Hamm’s craft boutique, barely visible between a pawn shop and a pet food store. Peters did a U-turn, her fifth of the day, and swooped into a parking spot outside the shop. In the window was a display of painted eggs and giant twig wreaths decorated with yellow ribbons and bunny rabbits. Bit late for Easter, thought Peters, as she shoved open the door. I guess wifie doesn’t share hubbie’s love of precision.

But hubbie had obviously tipped wifie off, because she trotted out an alibi almost word for word the same as his, except that she specified the
TV
shows.
Survivor,
a gardening show, and the tape of her soap. Exciting life you lead, Peters thought as she recorded the list. The whole interview took less than five minutes.

“Well, we’ve learned absolutely fuck-all on this trip,” Mr. Steroids said once they were back outside.

“Yeah, but now the fun part begins.”

“What? Food?”

“First the bus station. Then yeah, food, and maybe even a beer or two.”

“Ah, my kind of woman!”

Without bothering to explain, she tossed the address of the bus station at him and pulled out of the mall. The bus station, it turned out, was no more than a ticket booth inside a hotel at the central crossroads of the town. The King’s Arms had obviously seen better days. The desk clerk did remember Patricia leaving, but not arriving, and had no idea what direction she’d come from. She recalled only that Patricia seemed excited.

“Well, that was about as useful as tits on a bull,” Steroids pronounced as they came back out of the hotel.

“You’d be surprised how useful tits can be,” she retorted. If the guy couldn’t see the implication of Patricia being excited, he was a dead loss. Patricia must have had more luck uncovering secrets than they had.

Steroids chuckled. “Speaking of eating...”

Ignoring him, she stood in the parking lot to figure out her next move. There didn’t appear to be any obvious bar scene in this jumbled up town, but when Patricia got off the bus, she would have been on foot. Which limited the places she might go.

“We’d do better to split up and canvass all the places nearby.” She pointed down the street. “You take that far side of the block, and I’ll do this side, including the hotel. And while I’m driving you there, you’re going to get a crash course in interview techniques. Not anything like the ones you learn in cop school.”

Before she dropped him off at the first restaurant on the block, she made him ditch the sports jacket and undo another button on his blue shirt, but he still looked like a cop. She could only hope the girls mistook his steely gaze for a special forces hotshot on leave.

She drove back to the hotel and parked around the back near the railway tracks. She’d spotted a bar tucked into the back of the dank old hotel, and instinct told her that, after a long bus ride, that would be the first place Patricia would go. She tossed her pink jacket into the backseat, unbuckled her gun, and hesitated before shoving it into the glove compartment. It was bending the rules, she knew, but the Glock was too damn big to conceal in her purse. The worst she was likely to encounter in broad daylight was a lecherous drunk anyway, so she slipped her tiny pepper spray can into her purse along with her notebook. After peering at herself in the car mirror, she smeared on some hot pink lipstick and shook her frizzy red hair loose. Eat your hearts out, boys, she muttered and set off for the hotel bar.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, it was too late for the lunch crowd and too early for anyone but the serious drinkers, but nonetheless she found a bunch of rookie privates shooting pool in the corner. Their freshly shaved heads and lean, trim bodies despite the quantity of beer cans stacked on a nearby table gave them away. They hooted when she walked in, but she ignored them. Not one of them looked over twenty, and she was looking for an older crowd. The type of men Patricia would have sought out were the type who’d been around and had the war stories to prove it. Cops or soldiers, they were all the same. Old drunks only needed a listening ear and the occasional top-up to recount the horrors they had survived. Proud of the wounds and the toughness they stood for. When in fact they hadn’t survived at all.

She found her man at the back of the bar, nursing a beer and scotch chaser as he watched the pool game. She walked the length of the bar and chose a stool several down from his, ignoring him. The bartender, a skinny mass of sinew and bone, was leaning against the wall, watching her. He made no move to approach.

“Give me a Blue,” she said.

He shoved himself off the wall, reached beneath the bar and pulled out a can. Without cracking the tab, he plunked it down on the counter.

“I’m looking for a woman,” she said to the bartender. “Friend of mine who went missing a couple of weeks ago. She said she was coming up here to see an old friend. Mid-thirties, blonde going grey, on the thin side. She looks a bit rough right now. Has this big, ugly-ass black purse with pink daisies on it. She likes her liquor, so I’m hoping she’s been in here.”

The bartender’s expression didn’t change, but he lifted his scrawny shoulders in a shrug.

“Thing is,” Peters said. “I’m worried about her. We’ve been through a lot of shit together, and she’s not handling it as well as me. She might get in with a nasty crowd.”

“What do the cops want with Patti Oliver?” The voice came from the corner. Gravelly from cigarettes and booze.

Peters swung around to stare at the man against the wall. For a moment she was dumbstruck. “Patti Oliver. Yeah, that’s her name. Did you see her?”

“Depends.”

She picked up her Blue and shifted to the stool next to him. Losing interest, the bartender wandered off towards the front.

“But you saw her. Is she all right?”

“You think I’m an idiot, lady? You come in here at three in the afternoon, as cool as you please, nice outfit, no fear. You got cop branded on your forehead. So I repeat, what do the cops want with Patti Oliver?”

Peters scrutinized him in the semi-darkness. At closer quarters, he was not as old or as far gone as she’d first thought. Amidst his wrinkled, leathery skin, his eyes were clear, and at the moment they appeared to see right through her. With a sigh, she reached into her purse and took out the photos.

“Is this the woman you call Patti Oliver?”

The man spread the pictures on the bar and bent over them in the dim light. After a long look, he shoved them away. “She’s dead.”

“Murdered.”

“Shit.”

Peters opened her notebook. “What did you talk to her about?”

“This and that. Her boyfriend that died. How she had a ticket to even the score, right here in this town.”

“Even the score. Those were her words? What did she mean?”

“Beats me. She was playing things pretty close to her chest. But she was asking questions about the base, and did I know the guys who served in Croatia. And also the election. Kind of weird, that, wanting to know the background of the guys who were running. I don’t follow that shit, but some of the men are pretty excited about it this time. So—”

“Hey, officer!” It was the bartender calling. She looked up to see him standing at the phone near the door. “Your partner called. He wants you to meet him outside
ASAP
, around the back where you parked the car.”

Peters cursed. Moron, she thought, blowing my cover like that. And what the hell is this
ASAP
shit? Couldn’t he wait till I’m done my first stop?

She shoved the photos back into her purse and turned to the guy at the bar. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back once I deal with this. And the next beer’s on me.”

She stomped out of the dark bar and paused, blinded for a moment by the bright afternoon sun. After getting her bearings, she headed for the car.

Muttering, “Okay, asshole, this had better be good.”

FOURTEEN

June 23, Sector West, Croatia.

Dear Kit... Only eight days till my
UN
leave and I can’t
wait to see you, hang out at the farm, watch
TV
, go to a movie.
Man, just to take a walk down the lane without checking for
mines! It’s been boring here, sitting at the hot dog stand all day.
The rules have changed, which is frustrating. We’re not
supposed to confiscate weapons any more, we’re supposed to ask
the belligerents nicely if they’d like to give them up. Like that’s
going to happen!

So the other day a bunch of Serbs walked in and took all
their rifles and grenades out of the cache we had them in, and
we couldn’t do a fucking thing. I thought the Hammer was
going to have a stroke. He’s on the radio screaming to the
OC
,
but that’s the orders from the new Sector West commander.
Jordanian guy. I don’t know about this multi-national idea,
seems like the Canadians are the only ones who know what
we’re doing. So of course the Croats start screaming favouritism
and they haul out their guns too. And all our hard work getting
the place calmed down so you could walk around without shells
flying over your heads, that’s all going to be down the tubes.

On the bright side, our section beat 3 Section at soccer
yesterday. Afterwards at the mess, Sarge did a little dance on
the table again. From a strict religious Prairie boy, he’s getting
to be the life of the party. And another good thing, Fundy has
made a real difference to the mines. She finds them better than
the engineers, and she gets such a kick out of it. Big smile on
her face and her tongue hanging out as she waits for her treat.
Yesterday she was tagging along with Mahir and she spotted
one buried right on the path he uses every day to get home.

Sue Peters was being airlifted to the Ottawa Hospital on advanced life support. By the time the helicopter was scheduled to touch down at seven-fifteen, Green had already been on the phone with the military police, the Petawawa OPP and the Pembroke Hospital. He’d spoken to everyone from the first officer on the scene to the doctors who had tried to patch her together. He’d briefed Barbara Devine and prepared a short statement for the press.

He knew everything that had happened from the moment Peters’ battered body had been discovered inside an abandoned railway warehouse, but not a damn thing about how she got there. Constable Weiss had been nearly incoherent when questioned by the local police, and doctors had stuffed him full of tranquillizers before packing him into the back of an
OPP
cruiser and shipping him off to Ottawa.