Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (197 page)

She considered. “Will it be a cute cop?”

He managed a smile. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be home as soon as I can, promise.”

She didn’t brush it off as unimportant, but instead gave the briefest nod of appreciation. As the cruiser pulled away from the front curb, piloted by the tallest, youngest constable he could spare, she turned in the passenger seat and gave him a big thumbs up.

He wanted to toss all his obligations out the window and rush after her, but at that moment a muddy pick-up slewed into the semi-circular drive and jerked to a stop almost on his toes. Out of the cab piled three men and a woman, all identically dressed in
T
-shirts, jeans and work boots, with faded ball caps pulled low over their eyes. Green knew instantly that this was Jenna Zukowski’s family. They were all built like beer kegs, half as wide as they were tall, with broad, sunburnt Slavic faces and arms like tree trunks.

The three men headed for the glass doors to the lobby without a glance in his direction, but the woman stopped. She peered at him through blue eyes bleak and bruised by pain.

“You’re the inspector.”

He extended his hand. “Mrs. Zukowski. Yes, we’ve spoken on the phone.”

“When did you plan to tell us about this accident? You got an answer on the dead woman yet? Is this boy the killer?”

Inwardly, Green sagged. He thought of all the tasks clamouring for his attention upstairs in the squad room. Arranging a legal search warrant for McIntyre’s house, interviewing Darren O’Shaughnessy, finding out the news on Riley’s condition... All of them would have to wait. In the crises of the day, the fate of Jenna Zukowski had inexcusably slipped from his mind. But for her family the nightmare continued.

He took the mother’s elbow and opened the door for her. “I don’t have those answers yet, but please come in. I’ll see what I can track down.”

He seated them in a small conference room off the lobby while he went down the hall to the Ident lab to check on Paquette’s progress with the fingerprints.

The Ident officer looked harried. “Not ready yet. The skin was pretty damaged. But MacPhail did the post mortem earlier. He might have some news.”

Green glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock, well into MacPhail’s serious drinking time. Green steeled himself as he punched in the pathologist’s cell phone number. MacPhail must have been at the rosy stage of intoxication, because his manner was ebullient.

“I left you a message centuries ago, laddie. Thought I must have fallen from grace when I didn’t hear from you.”

“It’s been a busy day.”

“Oh aye, that’s what they all say.”

A dull ache flickered behind Green’s eyes, and he pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “So have you got confirmation on that
ID
for me?”

“Possibly, possibly. But that depends on the family. I need the answer to one wee question.”

Green jotted it down and returned to the conference room. He dreaded the task. Up to this point, the family had been able to cling to the faint hope that their daughter had not met with a brutal, terrifying end. With this one question, all hope could be dashed.

The elder Zukowskis were slumped in the plastic chairs, looking small and forlorn, but Jenna’s two brothers stood at rigid attention against the wall. They all tried to read Green’s face as he entered.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zukowski, did Jenna have an accident when she was a girl? A broken bone?”

The mother sucked in her breath. “What kind of bone?”

“Her left forearm. A spiral fracture, as if from twisting.” Even before anyone spoke, Green knew the answer. Shoulders stiffened as if from a physical blow. Glances shot around the table. It was one of her brothers who spoke. Softly. Flatly.

“Jenna was raped when she was fifteen years old. A senior from her high school. Guy pinned her down. The fucking bastard walked away without a charge.”

Green heard the implicit accusation but steered clear.

“What hospital would have the
X
-rays?” “It’s why our girl left Barry’s Bay, went into social work,” the mother said as if Green hadn’t spoken. “She wanted to help people.”

“And look what she got for her trouble” was the sentence that hung in the air, unspoken. The parents pulled themselves to their feet and headed towards the door.

“The pathologist will be releasing her body in the morning,” Green said. “Meanwhile, would you like someone with you? A counsellor...”

“No.” The father’s voice snapped like a whip in the small room. He reached to take his wife’s arm. “We don’t need none of that. Once we can take her with us, we’ll be going home.”

When Green arrived back upstairs, he was still awash in sorrow, futile anger and most of all, a nagging shame. He had resented Jenna’s interference, resented her stupidity that had placed her in harm’s way. Dismissed her motives as sheer nosiness. After more than twenty years dealing with the tragic choices people make, he should have known better.

Only a few detectives remained in the squad room. Gibbs was on the phone, and Sullivan was preparing the video setup for Darren O’Shaughnessy’s interview. Sullivan jerked his head towards Gibbs.

“He’s talking to the
ER
, waiting for an update. After that, I’m going to ask him to join me in the interview with Darren.”

Green chose his words carefully. “You have a history with this guy, Brian. Maybe you shouldn’t be involved.”

Sullivan’s jaw tightened. “A kid is possibly dead, and this bastard knows something. I know the case. I know what to ask him.”

“We’ll get someone else and give them an earphone. You can supervise from down the hall.”

“Who?” Sullivan challenged. “Bob?”

Green glanced at Gibbs, who sat resting his head in his hand. Distress was etched in every line on his forehead. Green had seen him at the accident scene earlier, carefully avoiding even a glimpse of the body on the stretcher. Almost three months had passed since the attack on Sue. Time was not helping. If anything, he was getting worse as Sue’s struggle dragged on. Something more drastic needed to be done.

Green shook his head. “I’m not taking the risk. Not with a multiple murder case.” He thought of Hannah nursing her fears all alone as she waited for him to come home. Then he thought of Jenna’s parents, wondering if justice would be served this time. He heaved a deep sigh. “I’ll take the interview myself.”

A dull red crept up Sullivan’s neck, and Green thought he was about to witness his famous Irish temper. But Sullivan picked up some papers from his desk.

“Here are my notes and questions. Don’t forget, the guy has a short fuse.”

Green scanned the latest notes from Ident on the blood at Darren’s home. “Gibbs can come in with me,” he said more gently. “He can wear the earphone and if you think of something that needs asking, feed it to him.”

Green’s instincts about Gibbs were reinforced when the young detective hung up the phone, looking grim. The detectives all clustered around him. “What’s the news?”

“He’s in surgery. They said it will be hours. There’s internal bleeding, multiple fractures...”

“But he’s going to live?”

“Well, you know what they say. The next forty-eight hours...”

“So let’s take it one hour at a time,” Green said, clapping Gibbs’ shoulder. “So far, so good.”

Riley was the first word out of Darren O’Shaughnessy’s mouth the moment Green and Gibbs walked into the interview room. The man looked exhausted. His shaved head shone with sweat, and his skin had an unhealthy blue tinge. A junior member of the defence bar sat at his side—a young man with a cherubic face and a slight lisp who Green suspected had never seen the inside of a police station before. Darren waved aside the introductions and the charter warning impatiently.

“Riley? Is he alive?”

Green nodded and relayed what little they’d been told. The man’s relief was minimal.

“Multiple fractures. To what?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get the preliminaries over with—”

“Fuck the preliminaries. Is he going to be able to play again?”

Green remembered the crushed and bloody body that the emergency workers had pulled from the car. He remembered the paramedic’s off-the-cuff appraisal as he secured the back board. ‘The kid will be lucky if he ever walks again, let alone skates.’ He relayed none of this. “He’s alive, Darren. Let’s go with that for now.”

“Fat lot of good that does him if he can’t play any more. Have you reached his parents?”

Green nodded. “His father’s on his way.”

Darren’s face twisted. “This will kill Ted. He’s put so much into that boy.”

Green felt a flash of anger that the man seemed more concerned with Riley’s playing prospects than with his very life. Or with the life of the innocent young woman he himself had chopped into bits. “Let’s get on with the interview, Darren,” he said. This time Darren didn’t interrupt while Gibbs read the charges and charter warning, and made the introductions for the tape. When Green asked him if he had anything to say in response to the charges, Darren merely snorted.

“You haven’t got a thing.”

“On the contrary, we have blood on your axe, shovel and wheelbarrow.”

“I killed a groundhog this spring that was burrowing under my shed.”

Green made a show of consulting Ident’s report. “This has been identified as human blood of the same blood type as the victim. Our Ident team has also just confirmed the presence of blood in your living room and back yard.
DNA
testing will cinch it, Darren.”

Darren digested this and grew sullen. “My lawyer says if you can’t prove which one of us killed that broad, you can’t touch any of us. Reasonable doubt.”

“Oh, we’ll prove it. There’s only you, Ben and Riley in the house. Once we get through going over everyone’s clothing with a fine-tooth comb, lifting prints off the body... Did you know we can get fingerprints off a body nowadays?”

“Do you think I give a shit about that with Riley lying in the hospital? All of this would never have happened if that stupid broad hadn’t decided to try to ruin his life!”

Green reached for the manila envelope at his side and took out a sheaf of crime scene photographs. Methodically he began laying then out along the table top. Baby-faced lawyer turned green. “This is what was left of that stupid broad by the time the killer was finished with her. When I show them to Ben, do you think he’ll be as cool about it as you? Are you telling me Ben’s capable of this savagery?”

Darren slammed his chair back against the wall and leaped up, his fists clenched but his face the colour of putty. His eyes bulged and spittle clung to his slack lips. “You bastard! I’m not saying another fucking word, except you touch my son and I’ll—”

Baby-face recovered enough to grab his client’s arm.

“You’ll what, Darren? Punch me out, just the way you did Jenna Zukowski?”

Darren’s eyes were riveted to the photos, and gradually his rage transformed to horror. His mouth opened several times, but no sound emerged. He sagged back into his chair, shaking his head. “I got nothing to say. Not while Riley’s fighting for his life. If he doesn’t recover, it won’t matter anyway.”

Twenty

 G
reen finally arrived home much later than he’d hoped, only to discover to his dismay that the house was empty. Nothing but a note on the kitchen counter. “Don’t sweat, I’m at Jim’s.” No number, no explanation of who Jim was, no word on when she’d be back. But at least she had left a note. At least she was with someone, not alone reliving her close brush with death while her father the bigshot detective put everyone else first. Again.

As much out of need as guilt, he phoned to touch base with his father, then Sharon. He listened to his son chatter on about Modo and the chipmunk, joked with Sharon about the utter hunting ineptitude of their hundred-pound dog, then hung up to a silence even louder than before. He poured a stiff scotch and spent a long night staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, reliving the case. Wondering if he could have done anything differently, if he could have prevented the tragedy, if they had the right man in custody after all.

Nothing seemed to add up. Riley had believed Vic McIntyre was the killer—or so he claimed—but McIntyre’s outrage had seemed genuine when Green accused him of trying to kill Riley to cover it up. They had no forensics, witnesses or blood to tie McIntyre to Jenna on the day she died. Furthermore, McIntyre was still strutting around like a man with nothing to fear, threatening to sue everyone over his incarceration and the car chase that had injured his multimillion-dollar player.

Instead, the forensics pointed to the O’Shaughnessys. The bloody murder weapon, and the probable murder scene, had been at Darren’s house. Yet it was difficult to fake the horror on Darren’s face when he’d seen the grisly photos. Darren was not a sophisticated man, nor a subtle one. Could he be that good an actor?

To add to all his doubts, there would be fallout from the chase that had led to Riley’s accident. Even though neither had been directly the result of police action, Green knew the public would want answers. In the press, the tense, split-second decisions made by himself and Ford would be minutely dissected. With a young man’s promising future in ruins, everyone would be looking for someone to blame.

Green’s fears were not allayed when he arrived at his desk to find three urgent messages from Barbara Devine and one from the office of the new Chief, who seemed anxious to make his authority felt. Tossing them aside for the moment, he went in search of Sullivan, who was nowhere to be seen. But Gibbs was at his desk on the phone. He looked freshly showered and shaved this morning, but a worrisome aura of gin hung around him.

“Anything on Riley?” Green asked once Gibbs hung up. Others in the squad room drifted close to hear. Riley was a minor celebrity; it seemed he carried the dreams of many on his shoulders.

“Good news, sir. He’s out of recovery, and he’s conscious this morning. The doctors say he’s still not out of the woods yet, but they’re amazed at how fast he’s come around.”

“So the prognosis looks good.”