Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (191 page)

Sullivan’s eyes narrowed, and Green could almost see the connections forming in his brain. But he looked unconvinced. “Yeah, okay, but if she’s the one who supplied the marijuana, she already knew about the bad drugs. That’s why she was upset all week.”

“But when she saw the paper, she knew that we knew, and she realized we’ll be looking for the drug supplier. She was probably afraid we’d trace it to her.”

“Okay. So she ran away. I still don’t see how you get to her being the Jane Doe.”

“Because if my theory is correct, someone else was freaked out by the
Sun
article too. Someone who wouldn’t want her found, or even identified. I think she was used, Brian. That’s the story of this kid’s life. Maybe she supplied the marijuana, but maybe someone else gave it to her. When Lea died, Crystal was worried. She didn’t know what had caused it, but she was afraid she had a hand in it. When she opens the paper Sunday, there it is. Her fears confirmed. Not only was she tricked into selling bad drugs, but the cops know about them. No wonder she freaked.”

The pieces fit, but their conclusion gave him no sense of triumph. In releasing that story to Corelli, he might have signed Crystal’s death warrant.

“Find out who she bought the marijuana from,” Green said grimly. “If she’s the Jane Doe, that’s who killed her. Get the drug squad on it and get medical and physical information on her to check against the body.”

“Mike, shouldn’t we at least wait till we have some results from the entomologist and the autopsy? That’s only a day or two. At this point we don’t even know whose body it is, let alone what led up to the death.”

Green shook his head impatiently. “Something’s happened to this girl. We should at least get a warrant for her phone records.”

Sullivan checked his watch. “Then I’ll put Gibbs to work on it. He’s handling the drug angle anyway. Jones is going to be back with the O’Shaughnessy warrants any second, and then I want to move on that house.” He reached for his cell phone, but in timing that bordered on prophetic, a knock sounded at the door, and Jones stuck his head in. He waved a sheaf of papers. “I got the search warrants signed and ready to go.”

“Excellent! We’ll alert the surveillance team we’re on our way.” Sullivan glanced at Green as he hauled himself to his feet. “You want in on this?”

Green hesitated. He would love to be there when the search was conducted. Nothing in his deskbound life equalled the thrill of seeing a case break wide open. But this latest twist troubled him. Another teenage girl was missing, this one with half a dozen ominous links to the very heart of the case. She was a hockey groupie who had attended parties with both Riley and Vic McIntyre, she had set her sights on Riley, which gave her a good motive for wanting Lea out of the way, and she might have supplied the drugs that led to Lea’s death. Most ominous of all, she had received a phone call Sunday morning right after the article in the
Sun
came out.

Then she had disappeared. Green recalled Hannah’s cryptic words the other night about the adults who worked in the background, supplying the drugs and pulling the strings. Nobody opens a candy store for nothing, she’d said.

It might already be too late, but he couldn’t wait around for another teenage girl to turn up dead. Much as he hated to miss the fireworks at the O’Shaughnessy house, he was needed elsewhere.

“Take Wallington and Jones,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

If Sullivan was surprised, he masked it well as he organized his team, coordinated a plan and headed out of the building.

Once the flurry of activity died down, Green stood in the empty squad room, kicking himself for not hanging onto Jones, the warrants wizard. With the raid on the O’Shaughnessy house and the two homicide investigations in full swing, not a single Major Crimes detective was available to follow up on Crystal’s cell phone records or her drug connections.

He phoned the heads of the drug squad and the school resource officer program to get them tracking down all all know crystal meth labs and suppliers, then he phoned Gibbs for an update on his search for Crystal.

“Nothing yet, sir.” Green knew it was useless to hound him, useless to add a phone warrant to his list of chores. Even at the top of his game, Gibbs had always been meticulous and thorough, but no one could ever have accused him of excessive speed. In his current state, any pressure would only throw him into a tailspin. Muttering a vague explanation about the urgency of the search, Green hung up and reluctantly turned his attention to the phone warrant.

Green hadn’t drafted a search warrant in years. He hated the long, tedious exercise in nitpicky detail and precise legalese. As he was tracking down the latest guidelines in the procedural manual, he remembered the warrant Jones had drawn up to obtain Riley’s cell phone records. Moments later he’d printed it off his computer, scribbled out the information on Crystal and handed the task of the new warrant over to a detective in General Assignment who looked eager for brownie points with the inspector.

Belatedly, he realized he hadn’t heard any results from Riley’s cell phone warrant, even though he was sure Jones had put a rush on it. Maybe it was time to light a fire under the phone company. He headed down to the incident room, where a clerk sat at a computer surrounded by stacks of papers. She was meant to be inputting all the information on the Lea Kovacev case into the Major Case file, but she was actually leaning back in her chair, slowly spinning in circles. She started at the sight of him, nearly tipping her chair. He ignored it.

“Has Bell Mobility faxed the cell phone report on Riley O’Shaughnessy yet?”

As if anxious to redeem herself, she spun around and dived for a stack of papers sitting in the fax machine basket. She rifled through them, squinting at the titles, then pulled one with a flourish. “All these things just arrived this morning, sir.”

Green snatched it from her, his eyes scanning the columns. It took a moment to decipher the dates, times and numbers, but two calls leaped out at him, made seconds apart in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The very night Lea had died. The first, logged at 12:01 a.m., had been to 911 and had lasted three seconds. Barely time for the operator to pick up the line before Riley had hung up. The second, logged at 12:02, was to a local Ottawa number. Green felt a rush of excitement. This was the person Riley had chosen to contact from his cell phone as Lea lay dead or dying beside him. Not the 911 operator, not one of his family in Gananoque, but someone right here in the city.

Green grabbed a nearby workstation and entered the phone number into the 411 database. Within seconds, a name and address leaped onto the screen.

V. S. McIntyre 51 Country Club Lane

Darren O’Shaughnessy’s house looked quiet in the morning sun. The grass was freshly mowed, the shrubs under the window neatly clipped, and the plumbing van gleamed in the driveway. Darren’s been a busy boy since our last visit, Sullivan thought as he drew his Malibu up to the curb behind the plain brown Impala of the surveillance team. Perhaps because of all the media attention his famous nephew had been getting this week. Wouldn’t want the place looking like a dump when the photographers arrive.

Now that the euphoria and heartbreak of the Stanley Cup finals was over, the
NHL
Entry Draft had become the talk of the sports pages. All the sports reporters were feeding the public’s hockey addiction by analyzing choices and making predictions. Being a local boy, Riley’s photo had been plastered across the sports section several times in recent months, and he’d even popped up on a couple of local television ads, which must have netted him a nice chunk of change. But Sullivan had noticed that recently his agent had done most of the talking, giving the excuse that Riley needed to concentrate on finishing school exams before the end of the week.

School exams my ass, Sullivan thought. The kid is a basket case, and McIntyre is keeping a lid on him. Even a hint of this scandal—of drug use or criminal negligence, especially after his recent slump—and the teams wouldn’t touch him, at least in the first few rounds when all the future stars were being snapped up.

Jones and Wallington pulled up behind him in a police panel van. After a brief discussion, the surveillance team headed around the house to cover the back door, while Sullivan and the other two detectives mounted the front steps and rang the doorbell.

No answer. No sound from within. Sullivan rang again, leaning on the bell for a full five seconds. At the end, he heard a muffled volley of curses and some thumping in the distance. He was about to ring a third time when the door cracked open, and a red-eyed youth peered out. He had on nothing but boxers, and muscles bulged on his bare, hairless chest. His straw-coloured hair stuck up in cowlicks around his head. Sullivan barely recognized Ben, whom he’d last seen as a pimply kid with half the muscles. Judging from the blank look on the kid’s face, he didn’t remember him at all. Sullivan decided to go by the book. Holding up his badge, he introduced himself.

“Is your father at home?”

Ben scratched his stubble, then turned to bellow into the hall. Silence answered him, and after a moment he shrugged. “I guess not.”

“But his vehicle is here.”

Ben peered out at the plumbing van in the drive. “Must have taken the other car.”

“Do you know where he went?”

Ben shrugged again, looking bored. “I just got up.”

Sullivan held up the official papers. “No matter. We have a warrant to search these premises.”

The bored look evaporated. The youth staggered back, his mouth falling open. “A-a warrant! Why?”

“It’s all in here. We also have a warrant for the arrest of Riley O’Shaughnessy. May we come in, please?”

“Riley! No!” Ben shoved forward to block the door. He was a big kid, almost as tall as Sullivan. “I mean, without my dad, you can’t come in.”

Sullivan pushed past him and signalled the others inside. “It’s all quite legal, son. These officers will conduct the search, and I’ll ask you to remain in the main room while they’re doing that. Where is Riley?”

Ben had backed up into the hall, flexing his fists and breathing hard. He was trying for bluster, but the whites of his eyes betrayed his fear. “You’re the one with the search warrant.”

“Upstairs?”

Ben snarled but said nothing. Sullivan went to the back door to let the other two detectives in and pointed upstairs. He listened to their footsteps thumping overhead, to doors opening and closing, and a minute later, they came thundering back down the stairs.

“No one there.”

Sullivan glanced at Ben and saw no surprise on his face. “Search the rest of the house. I’ll check outside.”

Sullivan had a bad feeling as he slipped outside into the back yard. The house was surrounded by a tall, overgrown cedar hedge which was easily penetrable if a person was determined to escape. If the surveillance team had been clumsy and Riley had spotted them from his upstairs bedroom window, he could be long gone by now.

The backyard looked like a typical handyman’s junkyard. A couple of old doors leaned against the wall, and an old washer and wood stove sat rusting in the corner. A garden shed with peeling paint and a sagging roof filled the back corner of the yard, its door half open. Sullivan moved quickly, checking behind shrubs on his way, and pressed himself against the shed wall.

He knocked cautiously. “Riley, it’s the police. Come on out, son. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Nothing. He shoved the door back hard, causing it to slam against the wall. The whole shed shook. Then stillness. He peered around the door into the interior, which was swept, with tools stowed away against the wall. He spotted a spade and an axe, both gleaming clean. Too clean, he wondered? Who the hell bothers to clean a spade?

Sullivan scanned the yard. There was no sign of a cart, but propped against the back wall of the garage, next to the garbage bins, was a large wheelbarrow.

Wheelbarrow! It was the perfect way to transport a body, lightweight and easy to manoeuvre. Pulling on latex gloves, he eased it away from the wall. It too was scrubbed clean. Not even a speck of rust. He’d never seen a wheelbarrow without at least a few rusty dings in it. Underfoot, the ground was soggy and the grass flattened as if soaked by a strong spray.

He went back inside to find the search team poking around in the bedroom closet. A half dozen pairs of shoes sat in evidence bags on the bed.

“There’s a spade and axe in the shed,” Sullivan said. “Make sure you bring them, and the wheelbarrow as well.”

Wallington nodded. “Do you want us to bag all these clothes?”

Sullivan looked at the closet stuffed with shirts, sweaters and jackets. All high-end, all in camera-friendly colours of rust and green that would look good with Riley’s dark hair and eyes. McIntyre’s touch. Hardly the kind of stuff you’d wear for chopping up a body. But stranger things have happened.

“Yeah, take it all. But the main thing to look for is old clothes or a raincoat. Easier to rinse blood off.”

“He probably threw the stuff out, sir. I would.”

Sullivan glanced out the window. “There’s a row of garbage cans out back. Check them thoroughly. I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to leave the stuff on the premises, but you never know.”

Riley’s bedroom window looked over the side of the house, with a clear view of both the backyard and the street where the surveillance team had been parked. Sullivan’s eyes settled on the garage directly below and he sucked in his breath. From this angle, he could see it was an oversized garage, with plenty of room to skirt around the van in the drive. “You said his car was in there?”

The surveillance detectives nodded like twins. “He drove it in there himself last night.”

Sullivan swore as he headed back outside and hauled open the garage door. It glided easily, well oiled and soundless. But when the sunlight finally poured in to illuminate the dank interior, there was nothing but an empty concrete floor.

The kid had flown the coop.

Seventeen

 A
n airplane loomed overhead, so low that it cast a shadow over the street like a massive bird of prey. Its jet engines blotted out all other sound. Green squinted up into the midday sun and tracked its descent over the tall pines. It looked as if it were going to land on nearby golf course, not at the airport more than a mile away. Back in the days before Ottawa’s airport was first built, the land around it had been a pleasant, rolling woodland on which the local gentry hunted and played. Now, Hunt Club was a typical labyrinthian tangle of suburban crescents crowded with comfortable fourbedroom homes, tattered basketball nets and
SUV
s that never saw anything rougher than the soccer field.