Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (98 page)

“I already did, sir.” Gibbs smiled and met his eyes. The kid’s finally getting some confidence, Green thought with relief. Gibbs had a wonderful investigative nose, but he was scared of his own shadow, which was a major drawback in Criminal Investigations. “They’ve nothing on them either, sir. Except for one son, Benjamin, victim of a one-car fatal in 1990.”

“Any particulars?”

“It was labelled driver error, but the accident occurred at one-thirty in the morning, so alcohol might have been a factor. Although County Road 2 is pretty dark and deserted at that time of night.”

County Road 2 is also pretty straight, Green thought, remembering their recent drives along the road leading to Ashford Landing. He looked at Benjamin’s date of birth and did a quick calculation. Benjamin had died on his twenty-first birthday, possibly on his way home from one too many celebrations. Green felt a twinge of sorrow for the beleaguered family. Had this been the tragedy that had turned their lives upside down?

He returned his attention to Gibbs’s notes. Benjamin had been the second youngest son, but still seven years older than Robbie. The mother had died twelve years ago, two years after Benjamin. Gibbs had not yet been able to track down any additional details beyond the name and birth date of the remaining three sons. Derek, Tom and Lawrence. Green pointed to their names.

“Concentrate on Derek, but just to be thorough, see if you can locate the present whereabouts of all three—or at least their most recent known address. Lawrence would be the fifth son we forgot to ask about. Check if Robbie Pettigrew or any of the villagers know where he went. Let Brian know if you find anything useful.”

After Gibbs had scurried off, Sullivan eyed Green with disapproval. “You just gave him the work of two officers. You know, just because he’ll do it, it doesn’t mean you should ask him to.”

Green smiled. “That’s why you’re going to give him a new partner. The new woman you just got from General Assignment? Sue Peters? I think she’d be a great fit for Gibbsie.”

Sullivan laughed without humour. “Where did you get that bright idea? She’ll scare him half to death.”

The idea had only just occurred to Green when he saw the new confidence in Gibbs. It was about time he took on a more senior role and began training others in that wonderful investigative nose. And who better than the cocky young detective who was clawing her way resolutely through the ranks. Learning to dot every i and cross every t under the meticulous tutelage of Bob Gibbs ought to slow her down a touch. As well as maybe make a decent investigator out of her.

But he said none of that to Sullivan, who was clearly irked by Green’s cavalier invasion into his territory yet again. “It’ll do them both good,” he replied instead, tossing a wink over his shoulder as he headed for the third floor. “I’d like a quick update after my meeting before I go home. And I’m leaving at three.”

“Three!” Sullivan’s tone registered his disbelief, for Green almost never left before six.

“I have to see a kid about a crucifix.”

Hannah flounced into the passenger seat and immediately changed the radio station from Green’s classic rock to extreme rock, casting him a look that dared him to object. Ignoring the bait, Green pulled out of the school drive and accelerated up Carling Avenue towards the Queensway. It was half past three, and the autumn sun was slanting through the window onto her face. She jerked the visor down and hid behind dark glasses.

“How was school?” he ventured neutrally.

“Kyle wasn’t there today.”

“Oh? Sick?”

She shrugged. “Seemed fine yesterday. Till you started asking him all those questions.”

“Well, we’ll try to make this like a game today. Make sure you explain to him that he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He understands English, Mike. He’s not an idiot. I mean—” She broke off, flushing.

“I know he isn’t, but I’m a police officer, and he may think that means he’s done something wrong. Tell him we just want him to help us figure out who the chain belongs to.”

To her credit, Hannah tried her best when they arrived at the McMartin farm. Kyle was in the barn, looking perfectly healthy as he mucked out stalls. The reek of manure clung to his clothes, and he seemed oblivious to the flies that swarmed around him. Green was struck by how big and muscular he was in his overalls and rubber boots. A boy’s mind in a body that was fast becoming a man’s. Green’s impression was reinforced by Kyle’s reaction to Hannah, which was pure adolescent male. Red-faced, tongue-tied and tripping over his limbs.

But as soon as she mentioned the crucifix, he started to wag his head back and forth.

“I don’t remember. I get mixed up.”

Green watched him carefully. “What were you doing when you found it?”

“Walking.”

“Morning or afternoon?”

Kyle began to shake his head when Hannah stepped in again. “Was lunch finished?”

A nod.

“Was dinner finished?”

“No. Not started.”

“Good.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Were you walking home from the village?”

“No.”

“Were you walking to the village?”

Kyle squirmed and looked away, shaking his head. Green picked up the cross-examination technique. He pointed towards the woods in the direction of the river. “Were you walking over there, Kyle?”

“Kyle’s not allowed to go in the woods, Mr. Green,” came a sharp voice from behind them, as Edna McMartin strode into view from the interior of the barn. Her grey hair stood on end and wisps of straw stuck to her clothes.

Kyle shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t. I didn’t go there.”

Her eyes were hostile, and Green felt all chance for cooperation slipping through his fingers. He thought he knew why; they had not informed her of their arrival nor asked permission to speak to her son. Kyle had come out to greet them and, hoping to keep the interview as casual as possible, they had simply slid right in.

He apologized to her as humbly as he could and explained the importance of pinpointing the discovery of the chain. “We believe the dead man was probably Derek Pettigrew and that this chain was lost by him shortly before his death. We’re trying to trace his movements leading up to his death.”

Edna McMartin fixed Kyle with a firm, unwavering gaze that Green suspected would see through anyone’s subterfuge. “Did you go to the woods near the river, Ky?”

He swallowed and shook his head. “No, Mom. Never.”

“Then where did you find the chain?”

“I was walking to the village. Through the field.” Kyle pointed across a stubbled field towards the distant church spires of the village. Green studied him thoughtfully. The boy was lying; he had earlier denied this. But why?

“Why is Kyle not allowed to go in the woods?” he asked the mother casually.

“Because of the river, of course,” she answered in a tone that implied a silent “you idiot.”

“Of course. Have you lived on this farm long?”

“Long?” She snorted. “Is all my life long enough?”

Green felt as if he had hit a gold mine, if he could only figure out how to mine it. “Then you would have known the Pettigrew boys before they all left.”

Her gaze grew wary. “Some. We stay pretty busy on the farm.”

He turned abruptly towards Hannah. “Sorry, honey. I need to have a few words with Kyle’s mother inside. Do you think you and Kyle can amuse each other out here for a while?”

Poor choice of words, Green thought with a grimace as he ushered the reluctant mother into her house. She seemed as uneasy about leaving them alone as he was, no doubt for opposite reasons.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” she said as she perched on the edge of her sofa, looking ready to bolt at any moment. Unlike last evening, she made no effort to remove the quilt or offer him a drink. “I haven’t seen any of the older children in years. And I never had much to do with him—” She jerked her head in the direction of the Pettigrew farm. “—since he started pickling himself in booze and bawling at the moon at three in the morning. Could hear it clear across to the village some nights.”

“Were you friends when the wife was alive?”

“Well, close enough when the boys were at school together. We were in the same church, and my Sandy was friends with their Lawrence—”

A distant bell of recognition rang in Green’s head. “Sandy Fitzpatrick? The real estate agent? He’s your son?”

Her lips formed a tight, wary line. “How do you know Sandy?”

Green gave her the short explanation—that Sandy had provided Robbie Pettigrew’s address. That seemed to satisfy her, for she nodded and actually volunteered some information. “Sandy’s father is dead, fell under the baler. Jeb McMartin is my second husband.”

Green absorbed the coincidences of village life. That made Sandy and Kyle brothers, despite the probable twenty-five year age gap. Both were burly and full of health, although beyond that he could see no resemblance.

Edna flushed, as if having two husbands somehow made her a harlot. “His boy needed a mother, and I needed a man about the farm. This life is hard, Inspector. You take from it what you have to.”

Green nodded sympathetically. “I understand life was hard for your neighbours as well. What can you tell me about Lawrence? Do you know where he is?”

“St. Lawrence Psychiatric Hospital in Brockville, last I heard.”

“What happened to him?”

“Went crazy. His folks locked him up.”

“How long ago was that?”

She pursed her lips as if dredging her memory. “In Grade Eleven. I remember because he and Sandy were in the same grade, and Lawrence just stopped coming to school. Wandered around the place talking to himself, or suddenly you’d turn around and there he’d be standing, staring at you. Gave everybody the willies.” As the bearer of grim news, she seemed to lose her frostiness. “They tried to get him help up in Ottawa, and then one day they packed him into the family’s old pick-up and drove straight to Brockville. I don’t think the mother ever recovered, and then when her Benji was killed, well, that did her in.”

Green had a sinking feeling. A cursed family, the villagers had called them. “What do you mean?”

“Killed herself. Took years building to it, mind. Sinking deeper and deeper, with him not helping a bit, and poor little Robbie just raising himself. About ten, twelve years ago, I guess she figured he was raised enough, and so she called it quits.”

Green struggled to steer with one hand as he punched numbers into his cell phone with the other. Extreme rock pulsated through the car, and Hannah was bobbing her head with a secretive twinkle in her eyes.

“Do you want me to drive?” she shouted.

“In your dreams, honey.” She pulled what he recognized as a classic Hannah pout. Pro forma, with no outrage behind it.

“Back home I had my learner’s permit.”

“And we’ll have this discussion when you’re back in regular school.”

“I like Alternate Ed. The kids are way cooler, and I get to do this part-time work in the real world.”

He flicked off the radio and turned his attention to Gibbs, who had finally answered his phone. It was nearly five o’clock, but Green had known the man would still be hard at work. Green filled him in on Edna’s revelation about Lawrence Pettigrew.

“I’m ahead of you, sir,” Gibbs said. “One of the villagers told me, and I’ve already contacted the hospital personnel.”

Which is why I love you, Green thought with admiration. “What’s the news?”

“He was in St. Lawrence Psychiatric Hospital from 1984 till 2000, but he’s been in a supervised group home since then until just a couple of months ago.”

“What happened a couple of months ago?”

“He graduated to monitored independence, sir. Whatever that means. I’m trying to reach those people now.”

“Good. Let me know as soon as you find him. We’re looking for an absolute positive sighting in the past forty-eight hours to rule him out.”

Green rang off and found Hannah eyeing him with the faintest smile on her pixie face. She was so tiny and innocent looking, it was hard to believe she packed such a punch.

“If I hadn’t been in Alternate Ed, I wouldn’t have met Kyle. And if I hadn’t met Kyle, you’d never have found out the truth about that gold crucifix.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What did he tell you?”

“Without his mother breathing down his neck, he told me the truth about where he found it.”

It was Green’s turn to smile. “I thought he might.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Green’s smile broadened. “He found it in the woods on the way to the village, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “There’s a path running along the river, which starts at the next farm and runs past the McMartin farm into the village. He found it somewhere near the village.”

“On the ground?”

“Yes, just lying in the leaves.”

Green considered the implications. If Derek had lost that chain twenty years ago, it would probably have been found by other travellers or buried under layers of leaves and debris during the intervening years. To be found so easily by a boy strolling along the path, it had to have been dropped there recently. Perhaps on the very day the mystery man was spotted at the farm by Isabelle Boisvert.

Green winked at her. “I’ll make you a sleuth yet. Do you mind a little side trip?”

“Where?”

“To talk to Kyle’s older half-brother. He was a friend of the Pettigrew brothers years ago.”

“But Dad!”

It was the first time she’d called him Dad, and his jaw dropped before he could stop himself. Quickly, she scowled. “I’ve got homework to do and friends to call.”

“Fifteen minutes, tops. Promise.” And without giving her time to protest, he pulled into Sandy’s drive.

The realtor was even more frazzled than he had been a day earlier. Before Green could explain his visit, Sandy launched into a grilling of his own.

“It is true? They’re saying it was Derek in the church yard!”

“Who’s saying?”

“Everyone. I heard it from Harvey at the grocery store, who heard it from my stepfather.”

“You saw the picture. Did it look like Derek?”

“I haven’t see him in twenty years, and I was only seventeen when he left.” Sandy scrubbed his hands over his face distractedly. “I always assumed Derek was off having a successful life somewhere. But all the boys looked alike. Miniature clones of their father. It was their personalities that differed a great deal.”