Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (154 page)

Two minutes was plenty of time to tip someone off and set the assault in motion. Green still had that nagging suspicion that Weiss was merely a bit player, a conduit whose strings were being pulled by the real villain in the case. Who? And why was Weiss cooperating? What did the killer have on him that he could coerce an otherwise dedicated officer to betray his oath of service and the very colleagues he worked with?

In less than an hour, Wallington and Connors phoned in to report on their surveillance efforts at Weiss’s home. Green already feared what they were going to say. The curtains were drawn, the doors were locked, and the pick-up truck registered in his name was missing from the drive. Weiss was not there.

Of course he’s not, thought Green in frustration, because he’s gone into hiding somewhere. The question was whether he had Twiggy with him, or whether her body had already been dumped.

“We’ve checked with the neighbours on all sides, and no one has seen him since early Friday morning,” Connors said. “One of the neighbours phoned his home and his cellphone at our request and got no answer.”

“What about mail in the mailbox?”

“It was empty, sir.”

So either he received none on Friday, or he picked it up sometime after returning from the hospital Friday night, Green thought. Had he received orders to snatch Twiggy at that time, or had he been trying to find her since Thursday and had struck it lucky at the art gallery on Saturday morning because she’d still been waiting for Green?

Stop going there, he chided himself. It serves nothing but to cloud your objectivity, which is already clouded enough.

“Do you want us to set up a stake-out, sir?”

Wallington’s question stopped his spiralling thoughts. Weiss had to be found, even if they had to look under every rock. “Yes. Get that neighbour’s cooperation to do surveillance on the
QT
from his place, and interview all the neighbours again to see if any of them know where he might go to get away from things. Relatives, a fishing lodge, a cottage...anything like that. Also work up a list of known associates. I’ll put some guys on that from this end as well.”

“And if Weiss comes back?”

Green thought about that for less than five seconds. Weiss had proved too elusive to risk losing him all over again, along with all chance of finding Twiggy and catching the other players in the game. “Apprehend the bastard and bring him in.”

“On what charges?”

“I’ll be working on that.”

After he hung up, Green sat at his desk a moment, pondering that very question. He was about to arrest a fellow police officer and bring him in. All hell would break loose at that moment, from the police chief and Barbara Devine on down to the Police Association. He needed to know what was going on before he committed himself to an action that would be dissected for months, possibly years to come. He needed to know whether Weiss was the ruthless mastermind, or some small player caught in a web way beyond his control.

Green had always prided himself on his intuition, and after twenty years in the trenches, he’d witnessed human distress in all its varied guises. Weiss’s behaviour at the hospital on Friday had been unusual in its extreme, but his distress had seemed real. Only a very gifted actor could summon up the pallor, the trembling and the tears on cue.

Whatever part Weiss had played, however willingly he had played it, something was tearing him up inside. He was not the cold, calculating person Green had imagined the killer to be. He was conflicted, desperate and unpredictable, which made him dangerous not only to himself and to the Twiggy, but to the ruthless killer who was pulling his strings.

And that killer was almost certainly smart enough to realize that.

TWENTY-THREE

Sept. 1, 1993. A beach somewhere in Sector South, Croatia.

Dear Kit... It was good to hear from you finally. We’ve been moving around a lot, so I’m not sure where we are, or what we’re doing here. Mostly keeping an eye on Serb troopmovements, counting artillery fire, and waiting for the orderto move when the Croat withdrawal agreement is signed. TheHammer has us doing a lot of
PT
, humping up and down themountain with our packs so we won’t get soft. And drills.Man, am I sick of drills and cleaning the guns.

We’re in a town on the coast that’s pretty deserted, so wehave our choice of houses. Danny moved our section into thisbig old mansion. Most of the furniture’s been looted, but thereare beds for all of us. Beds! The first night I slept on one, Ididn’t sleep a wink. I still feel like I’m in that bunker on thehill. It’s hard to shake that, and just relax.

I’ve been thinking about home a lot, now that it’s gettingclose. I’ll have lots of money saved when I get back, but I thinkI’d like some time off, just to hang out at the farm and helpmy folks. Maybe I’ll be ready for vet school next year, but it allfeels a long way off.

Green yanked open his office door and scanned the squad room to see who might be available to join the search for Jeff Weiss. He spotted Charbonneau and Leblanc back at their computers and was about to call them over when the elevator slid open and George Nelson lumbered out. The staff sergeant’s bald dome was bright red and shiny with sweat, and even from across the room, Green could hear his wheezing.

When Nelson saw Green, his eyes sparked. Without a word, he gestured Green back into his office and slammed the door. “I hear you’ve got half a dozen officers going after Jeff Weiss.”

Green forced himself to sit down behind his desk with a serenity he did not feel. Jesus, the last thing this delicate operation needed was a leak that brought the entire police service down on his back. “Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

Green met his belligerent stare with silence. Finally, Nelson wagged his heavy head back and forth with disgust. “Jesus H., Mike, what are you doing?”

“You know I’m quietly looking into Weiss’s possible involvement, George. You yourself talked to me.”

“An off-the-record discussion between supervisors is one thing. You’ve got guys out there watching his house and checking his phone records!”

Damn, Green thought, one of my men is blabbing. Some of his anger crept into his voice. “I’m tracking a killer, and I’m also trying to prevent him from killing again. I have to tell you, the evidence against Weiss is piling up.”

Nelson absorbed this in silence, his breathing loud in the tiny room. “Have you told the brass yet? Or Professional Standards?”

Green hesitated. He had made one effort to contact Devine, but had been relieved she wasn’t there.

“Jesus H.!” Nelson said. “You’ve got to tell them. This has to be by the book.”

“It will be. Nothing has been done yet, and so far all I want to do is locate Weiss so I can keep an eye on him till I put the pieces together.”

Nelson raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s going to blow up in your face, Mike. If I found out, half the force will know by dinnertime.”

Green didn’t appreciate being reminded of the obvious. He tried again. “Which one of my men told you?”

“It wasn’t one of ours. It was a neighbour of Weiss’s who’s in the
RCMP
. He knew I knew Jeff, and he wanted to know what was going on.” Nelson paused to wipe the sweat that had trickled down his cheek. “Law Enforcement’s a small community. Everybody knows somebody, nothing stays a secret very long. Weiss is going to find out.”

Green tried to imagine the fall-out. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It might force his hand.”

“Weiss is a scrapper. If he’s innocent, he’ll come after you with every regulation in the book.”

“And if he’s guilty?”

Nelson’s eyes narrowed behind the bags of bruised flesh as he concentrated. Gradually worry crept into them. “You know the type of cop who eats their gun?”

Green leaned forward urgently. “Then help me find him, George. Where would he go? Who would he turn to? Is he married?”

“Divorced.”

“Kids?”

Nelson nodded. “Three, but they’re still pretty young.”

“Is he close to his ex-wife?”

Nelson sucked his jowls into a scowl and shifted his bulk in the chair. “The break-up was on my watch, when he had that bit of...disciplinary trouble. It was hard on him, although the decision was mutual. To answer your question, I think they’re amicable.”

“Would he turn to her?”

“He might. He doesn’t have many friends.” Nelson couldn’t remember the wife’s name, but he tested his vague recollections against the listings in the phone book until they had narrowed down the most likely Weiss. A quick phone call to see if she was home netted only her voice mail, but Green didn’t leave a message. He didn’t plan to do this interview over the phone; he wanted to see her in person so he could interpret every pucker of the brow or blink of the eyes.

After he’d escorted Nelson to the elevator, thanked him for his help and asked him to try to quash the rumours, he dispatched Charbonneau and Leblanc to check the wife’s house and to set up a stake-out from an inconspicuous place on the street. Then he returned to his office, bracing himself for the task he could no longer put off. Devine was not in her office, but this time she picked up her home phone on the second ring.

“Green!” she snapped before he could get more than a word in. “What’s going on down there?”

He cast about, unsure which crisis she was referring to. Good God, could she too have heard the news that he was investigating Weiss? “Lots of things,” he countered cautiously. “Why?”

“Turn on the television,
CBC
. See for yourself! Then call me back. I want to listen now.”

He hung up and dashed out of his office down to the coffee room, where a small
TV
sat in the corner, almost never used except for the Stanley Cup playoff games. He turned it on and flipped channels until suddenly, to his surprise, John Blakeley’s grim face filled the screen. He was standing at a microphone, soberly attired in a navy suit and tie. His wife stood at his side, her gaze expressionless, but her lips pulled in a tight slash. “I am eternally grateful to the faith that the Liberal Party and the people of Renfrew-Nippissing placed in me, and it is with a heavy heart and much soul searching that I have made this painful but necessary decision. Public office is an onerous and awesome responsibility, and those who accept it must be able to devote their full attention and energy to it. Public office is also an honour, and those who accept it should be worthy of the trust placed in them and serve as an example of all the best ideals our country embodies.”

He glanced at the ceiling, as if searching for inspiration in the phrasing of his dilemma. “As long as our armed forces and the missions they have accomplished are under scrutiny, I do not feel I can serve the Liberal party nor the Canadian people with the attention, energy and honour they deserve. Therefore, at fourteen hundred hours today, I notified the Chairman of the Liberal Party of my intentions and submitted a formal withdrawal of my candidacy to the Chief Electoral Officer.”

Blakeley had been standing rigidly still with his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze fixed straight ahead, like a warrior facing his execution. Throughout the speech, his voice rang clear and firm, but now he paused and Green could see the fine quiver in his jaw.

“I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment my withdrawal will cause for the Liberal Party, the voters of Renfrew-Nippissing, and my hard-working staff. I wish to assure you all that, had there been another way, I would have taken it. Thank you.”

Barely were the words out of his mouth than the press peppered him with questions. A reporter jostled another to get his own microphone closer, and cameras flashed. John Blakeley did not stay for questions; he took his wife’s hand and the two of them hustled out a door at the far side of the room, which Green recognized to be the marble lobby of the Chateau Laurier.

Immediately, the
CBC
news commentators began scrambling to analyze the speech, which had apparently caught everyone by surprise. A spokesman for the Liberal Party, hastily reached on the Sunday, called the loss of John Blakeley’s candidacy regrettable but by no means insurmountable, as there were many other fine Liberal candidates in area ridings. Which translated, meant that the Party brass was already distancing itself from John Blakeley and whatever mud he might have stuck to him.

Green listened impatiently for the crucial detail he had obviously missed—the connection between Blakeley’s withdrawal and the scrutiny of the military. What scrutiny? The analysts were asking that very question as well. Apparently, Blakeley was expecting an imminent revelation in the news that would put the military under scrutiny, but he’d given no specifics. Speculation ranged widely from more equipment failures in the aging naval fleet to mistreatment of Afghan prisoners by our troops in Kandahar. Only one reporter wondered whether the recent beating of an Ottawa police officer in Petawawa might be connected. Considering that Green had left an interview with the man less than three hours earlier, he thought that extremely likely.

Green’s cellphone rang.

“Did you see it?” Devine demanded.

“Yes.” “So? Is it connected to the Ross case?”

“I don’t know.” Strictly speaking, that was the truth.

“I’m not a fool, Mike. In about two minutes flat, I expect the press to be on the phone, asking what the connection is and whether we’re investigating John Blakeley. Are we?”

“Well...yes.”

There was a brief pause. “My office, fifteen minutes. I want the media relations people there too.”

He sensed she was about to hang up. “Barbara!”

She came back on the line. “Damn it, Mike! The Chief is already on the other line. He’ll have to be included.”

Green groaned. He knew she was right, but he felt the whole delicate investigation spinning out of his control. “Okay, but you and I need to meet privately first, so I can tell you where we really are and figure out what the hell to release for general consumption. Because it’s explosive, Barbara. Really explosive.”