Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (239 page)

“Most of you are luckier than me. You knew my father. Growing up with Samuel Rosenthal, learned student of the mind, was a challenging task for a little boy who was blessed with his father’s brains and stubbornness but not his wisdom. Like any child, I was self-absorbed and defiant but also hurt by what I felt was the crushing burden of his expectations. My father’s compassion for his patients, his devotion to their care and well-being, his forgiveness of their sins—none of that was accorded to me. I say this not to criticize him but to show how poorly I understood him. Neither my father nor I were very good at explaining ourselves, least of all to each other.”

Grey heads bent in the congregation, whispers were exchanged and frowns suppressed. The unrest seemed to galvanize David.

“In the past seventy-two hours, I’ve been reading his private papers and now have an idea where he was coming from. It made me feel better, I’m only sorry it took till now, when he’s gone.

“I chose a career in biomedical engineering for the simple reason that, although the challenges are huge, the wiring extraordinarily small and the connections infinitely complex, at least they are physical. I can see, touch and manipulate them. The human brain is not only a thousand times more complex, with millions of synapses, receptors, and neurotransmitters interwoven in intricate, precise patterns, but it is overlaid with human consciousness, with interpretation, understanding, and an overarching search for meaning that governs every choice we make.” He glanced up and cleared his throat nervously before returning to his notes. Green had to smile in admiration. The speech was far more polished than the man, proof of what he could do when he brought the full force of his intellect to a task. He pictured David labouring over every word.

“This is hardly a new idea,” David said. “Religious scholars, existential philosophers and Eastern mystics have been trumpeting the notion for centuries. But in his later years my father tried to cultivate it in that most sterile of soils, modern psychiatry. While most of his colleagues preferred to tinker with receptors and neuro-transmitters through the use of drugs, my father understood that to become truly well, his patients had to stay in charge of that search for meaning. How they understood their world, how they defined their illness and how they chose to manage it was more crucial to their recovery than the right dose of the latest wonder drug.

“I don’t think he was foolish enough to believe that mental illness was merely a state of mind or that medication had no role to play, but he came to abhor our pill-popping shortcuts and our tendency to define every deviation from the mean as a disorder to be corrected. Once in my childhood, some doctor diagnosed me as
ADHD
. This was undoubtedly true, for it caused me a lot of grief—disciplinary trouble in school, conflicts with my parents and friends, for example. It still costs me, in relationships and in financial and career stability. But it is also a gift that allows me greater vision to imagine what’s possible, greater courage to take the needed risks, and greater energy to carry them through. I was perhaps my father’s first guinea pig, to see whether I could understand and channel the challenges of my brain and to incorporate them into who I was and where I was going, rather than simply drugging them away.”

David’s voice had picked up confidence. The audience unrest was gone now, each listener barely moving as he turned over the page.

“Paradoxically, a person defined only by their synapses and neuro-transmitters is diminished when an expert deems these physical functions to be defective. That’s why the halls and outpatient waiting rooms of psychiatric hospitals are filled with people who feel like failures. There’s a huge sense of inadequacy that needs to be overcome. My father’s goal was to try to connect with the person inside the illness, to listen to them and to draw out their hopes and fears and challenges. His hope was to be a partner with them to fight for those things they felt were not only healthy and fulfilling but also provided mastery and meaning to their life.

“Finding that balance was often a case of trial and error, and towards the end, my father recognized he had sometimes tipped the balance too far. Ultimately, such an error cost him his life, and even more tragically, the lives of others. But despite this, I hope we can all applaud the inspiration he provides all of us to look ahead with hope. In his own words, he believed that even inside the darkest, sickest brain, that messy little enigma—the thinking mind—was the ultimate agent of recovery.”

A message not just for mental illness but for all of us, Green thought as he made his way back to the station after the service. A hokey idea, this need for meaning. For Sullivan, it would determine the ultimate path of his recovery. For Sharon, it rose from deep inside her biological core—a clarion call that scared the hell out of him. He’d been ambivalent about another child since Sharon’s first subtle hints, but Sullivan’s brush with death had added another layer of doubt which he knew he had to face. Someday.

For Levesque, however, just beginning her career in major crimes, meaning was all about catching bad guys and making them pay for their assault on social order. She would be waiting at the station to begin the next round of interviews with Patrick O’Malley. He wondered what forensics had uncovered since yesterday, and whether they would ever know what had really happened. Whether there was a bad guy to catch at the end of this chase, or just a series of tragic tales.

Omar Adams had crept back home late the night before, once the news linking Caitlin to Rosenthal’s death had finally reached him, and his father had brought him into the station himself that morning. Green found them waiting when he arrived back from the funeral. The young man looked gaunt and subdued but no longer so afraid. His father sat at his side, grim and ramrod straight, but with a hint of something new in his eyes. Light.

“He wants to cooperate,” Frank Adams said. “We had a long talk, and he knows it’s the right thing to do. He still doesn’t remember much, but now at least he knows he didn’t kill that man.”

“Whatever else I did...” Omar muttered, then shrugged in acceptance as the duty sergeant led him away.

Charges would have to be laid against him, Nadif and the others. They might not have killed Rosenthal, but they had certainly beaten and robbed him. Without their help, Caitlin might not even have succeeded in her goal. Ultimately the young men needed to be held accountable for their part in the tragedy that had followed. Green doubted it would do much to deter Nadif from his path of crime, but Omar might still be turned around. As with Dr. Rosenthal’s patients, the proper remedy needed to be chosen with care.

In the squad room, the sense of urgency no longer hung in the air. They were no longer hot on the trail of a villain; Nadif, Omar and Patrick were all in custody, awaiting the interview and forensic results that would construct the case for court. Levesque was busy at her desk, the white bandage already replaced by a much more fashionable flesh-coloured bandaid. She sported two black eyes that made her look wan and frail, but she counteracted the effect by wearing a tailored navy suit and for the first time ever, a subtle pink lip gloss. She’d come prepared for battle against the high-powered, charismatic lawyer.

She glanced up belatedly as Green reached his office door, then gathered up some print-outs and came to join him. “I booked the video interrogation room for Mr. O’Malley at one o’clock, sir. His lawyer, Elliot Solquist, will be joining us. I thought you’d like to know the latest forensics before that.”

He sat behind his desk and scowled at the blinking voicemail light on his phone. No doubt there was a similar pile-up of messages in his email inbox as well. He gestured Levesque to a chair. “The executive summary, Marie Claire.”

She smiled. “At the Rothwell Drive scene, they found the weapon used to kill the mother. An eight-inch pair of fabric shears. It was placed in the cosmetics drawer in the daughter’s en suite bathroom, still covered in blood and smeared with fingerprints. Lou Paquette identified a useable one as Caitlin’s.”

“None from Patrick?”

She shook her head, pouting slightly as if disappointed.

“What about other prints? There were bloody handprints and footprints all over that scene.”

“Still being processed. Lou says he’ll be busy all month. They did find some traces of blood washed down the sink in Caitlin’s bathroom.”

Green thought back. “That also supports the father’s version of events.”

“But—!” Quickly she flipped to another report. “At the Montreal Road bungalow, Lyle Cunningham found some interesting prints on the prescription bottle and the water glass. The ones on the bottle were overlapping and partial, so he could only get enough points for a conclusive match on one. Caitlin’s. But he said some of the partials might have been Patrick’s.”

Green waved his hand in dismissal. “Patrick might have handled his wife’s sleeping pills any time. It means nothing that his prints are on it. What about the glass?”

“A couple of partial prints match Caitlin’s, but—” she smiled, the pout vanishing in her triumph, “the clearest, most complete print belongs to Patrick. His right thumb.”

It wasn’t much to go on, Green reflected once Levesque left the office. The crumpled phone message, the fingerprints on the fabric shears, the blood in Caitlin’s sink...everything was consistent with Patrick’s story. Most of the puzzle pieces fit. Even Patrick’s prints on the glass could be explained away.

Yet Green was left with a restless sense of unease.

He pulled out the sheaf of notes that David Rosenthal had found in his father’s apartment and smoothed them out on the desk. He bent close and slowly picked apart the doctor’s scratchy handwriting, still elegant but spidery with age The first page was a list of nine names and accompanying notations. Six of the names Green recognized as beneficiaries of his will, including Caitlin’s. Two other names were crossed out with the words “doing well” beside them. The final name was “David”, followed by three question marks and the word “maybe”. Caitlin’s name also had a question mark beside it and the word ‘father?’

There was no date or useful explanation on the page. If this list represented Sam Rosenthal’s original deliberations about his new will, he’d later made up his mind to exclude his son and to award Caitlin the money.

The second page contained two very brief progress notes, under the heading “C. O.”

Sept. 13. Patient arrived 10 p.m. Appeared anxious and fearful, denied concerns but not very talkative about herself. She asked about the High Holy Days, and what Jews did to celebrate the new year. I explained it was not a celebration but a time of reflection and atonement. For evil, she said, then talked on about bad state of world, some talk of Lucifer but denies hearing any commands from God to destroy him. Refused increase olazapine. Major concern, I tried to put some in tea but she didn’t drink it. I sense increasing suspicion. I hope the mother didn’t tell her about my call to her father.
Sept. 20, 1:30 a.m. Patient failed to appear for her session this evening. Even allowing for her rather loose appreciation of time, this is abnormally late, and she knows I will worry. My optimism that she would respond to my treatment approach appears to be misplaced, and her erratic and deteriorating behaviour has left me concerned for her safety and her future. With each relapse, the hopes for recovery diminish.
Her father has not yet returned my phone call. I know he cares about her in his heavy-handed, take-charge fashion. Hence I fear he may be starting to lose hope himself. For a parent, that moment when hope is relinquished, is the most devastating loss of all. I will make one last effort to find her tonight and if that fails, I will call him again tomorrow.

Green reread the last note several times.
“That moment when hope is relinquished is the most devastating loss of all”..
His thoughts returned to Patrick’s version of the events that had unfolded that tragic Sunday afternoon. Patrick had argued his daughter’s side against his wife, who wanted to turn her in to the police, then he’d gone down to make lunch. He’d heard an argument from upstairs, but that was commonplace so he thought nothing of it. He returned back upstairs to find his wife murdered in her bedroom, and Caitlin in her bathroom washing her hands after presumably stashing the murder weapon in her bathroom drawer. Patrick had chosen not to call 911, but instead to bind his daughter’s hands and bring her to the Montreal Road house. To her refuge, her one true home.

They had talked about her past and her future, her life at a crossroads. She had reached a decision. Perhaps he had even poured the water, held the glass, emptied the pills...

The vague sense of unease clicked into focus. With Caitlin’s hands bound, only one person could have brought the bottle of sleeping pills from her mother’s bedside. Only one person could have brought the supply of water needed to wash them down.

Patrick had known, even before his talk with his daughter, what the outcome would be. He had brought her to that house with all the supplies needed for her suicide. He had intended her to die. Had he let her explore her own way, or had he nudged her along the path to her decision? Had he told her it was her only hope for an end to the torment, her ultimate act of atonement?

Even worse, had he deceived her with assurances of a long, much-needed sleep? Or with threats and intimidation, forced the pills down her throat?

Green’s heart pounded. In the privacy of that little bungalow, a tragedy had unfolded. A young woman had reached an impasse, and a father had been forced to make a horrific choice on her behalf. Perhaps she had begged him to end it, perhaps he had made the choice for her. It was impossible to know. More importantly, from a police perspective, impossible to prove. Patrick already faced the possibility of charges as an accessory to murder. At the very least, he would lose his reputation, his good standing at the Bar, and most certainly his social standing, all of which paled next to the losses he had already sustained. Would it serve the cause of justice—for Sam Rosenthal, for Lindsay Corsin or for Annabeth—to bring that horrific choice out of the privacy of that room into the harsh light of law?