This Thing of Darkness (26 page)

“Don't think so.” The driver frowned. “Come to think of it, one guy did slow. I thought he was looking for an address. Then he took off in a hurry.”

“What make of vehicle?”

“Green Camry.”

Possibly a red herring, Green thought, but worth following up. “Did you get a look at the driver?”

“Just a brief one. White, beard, grey hair...”

Bingo, Green thought. David Rosenthal had a new car. “Which direction did he go?”

The driver pointed towards Montreal Road, a main thoroughfare where David would be swallowed up in traffic instantly. Green returned to his own car and pulled his cellphone from his pocket. If Sam Rosenthal's new will was in his apartment, David had not found it during his visit the day before. He might go back for a second look.

Green sat in his car, toying with his cellphone. If David found the will and its list of new beneficiaries, what would he do? Was he angry enough, and foolhardy enough, to go after them? Green knew that so far he didn't have enough concrete evidence to justify picking David up, even as a stall tactic. There were vague threats and ultimatums, but neither Verne nor Solquist had laid any complaints or expressed fears strong enough to justify any sort of charge.

There was one course of action open to him, however, but George Verne would have to take it. As executor of Sam Rosenthal's estate, he had the power to order the locks changed on the dead man's apartment to prevent removal of assets. It was probably closing the barn door after the horses were long gone, but it was a start, he thought as he dialled the old lawyer's number.

Afterwards he was just steering the Subaru back towards home, hoping to catch a couple of hours with Tony and Sharon before her evening shift, when his phone rang again. Once more, he thought as he answered, and I'm going to turn the thing off.

It was Levesque, sounding excited.

Seventeen

I
was thinking you want to hear this, sir,” Levesque said when she greeted him at the basement entrance to the police station fifteen minutes later. There was a bounce in her stride as she led the way to the large room where the electronic surveillance teams were housed. Banks of computers and monitors lined the aisles like the workings of a giant high tech firm. Their footsteps were muffled by carpeting as they headed to a small cubicle in the audio surveillance corner, passing technicians with headsets who fiddled with dials and recorders. Levesque stopped in front of an automatic wiretap recorder. The technician waiting for them handed Green a headset.

“This came in about an hour ago from the Hassan wiretap. It sounded hot, so I let Marie Claire know.” The technician flashed her a warm smile, which she ignored. Better stick with your own age bracket, Green thought. At close to fifty with a paunch, a wife and four kids in college, the guy hadn't a hope. Green slipped on the headphones, and the technician ran the tape.

The sound of ringing, followed by a male voice saying hello. Young, Green thought.

“Nadif?”

“Who is this?” Slow. Wary.

“It's Omar's father, you piece of shit.”

“Mr. Adams!” Alarm now. “Don't—”

“I'll do the talking.”

“Sure, but why don't I come over.”

“This won't take long. I just want you to know—”

“Wait!”

Green chuckled. Nadif knew his phone was being tapped, and he was trying to stem the tide.

“You made a big mistake when you tried to drop Omar in it—”

“Omar's my friend!”

“Yeah, some friend. It should be you going to jail, you little rat.”

“No one's going to jail, Mr. Adams. It's all a mistake.”

“Sure. Just so you know, you'll get yours back. Omar's remembering things. The hooker? The knife? Soon it's going to be you—”

The line clicked abruptly. Nadif had finally had the sense to slam the phone down. Too late.

Levesque was smiling in triumph as Green peeled the headphones off. “I knew those punks were involved,” she said.

Green looked at the technician. “Anything after this?”

The man shook his head. “That tap's been stone cold. Nada.” He looked apologetically at Levesque. If he'd found a single incriminating word, Green realized, he would have reported it to her, just for the pleasure of having her near.

Levesque was fairly dancing, her blue eyes bright above pink cheeks. Green remembered that feeling, that moment when the case begins to break open. He felt his own pulse quicken, but he held up a cautioning hand.

“What this proves is not that the two were involved, but that Omar has been holding out on us. Or he's remembering more details about that night.”

“Absolutely. Either way, I'm going to have him picked up for further questioning.”

Green glanced at his watch. “When?”

“As soon as I get upstairs.”

Green hesitated. She was so caught up in the case that she'd forgotten it was Saturday. Her time with her daughter. Yet this time, the haste was premature. “The other thing the tape proves is that the prostitute is important. We need to find her and get her statement before you have another run at Omar. Any word yet on who and where she is?”

Levesque scowled, her eyes clouding. “Not yet.”

“Let's just check the latest.” Green turned to head back to the exit, remembering at the last minute to thank the technician. It was something Sullivan would have done, always mindful to show respect and appreciation for those under him. In his headlong rush to solve the case, Green often forgot that others existed.

Up in the squad room, Green made some phone calls to the hospital and to Sharon while Levesque busied herself gathering updates. Sharon was surprisingly gentle and understanding when he apologized for being delayed by the demands of the case.

“How's Brian?” she asked immediately.

He was taken aback. How well she knows me, he thought. Work has always been my escape route. He filled her in on his disastrous morning encounters with Brian and with Mary.

“The only thing you can do for him, honey, is to be there when he does learn the truth.”

He grimaced. “Being there” had never been his forte. “The best thing I can do for him right now is solve this case,” he countered, “and it looks as if it's cracking open a bit.”

There was a silence, then, “Have you identified that photo Brian had?”

“Not yet. We're working on it, especially now—” He broke off as a dreadful thought struck him. He glanced through his open office door to see Levesque striding towards him. “Look, I have to go now. I'll fill you in when I get home.”

Levesque came in shaking her head. Before he could voice his fear, she said, “As I thought, some progress but nothing exceptional. A bus driver on the number two route recognized her, says he often picks her up in the Beacon Hill area and drops her off on Rideau Street.”

Green considered this information. Beacon Hill was a mixed but largely middle-class residential area in the east end of the city, featuring older homes with established families and stable, modest incomes. There were some lower income and subsidized rental properties, but it was hardly the area one would expect a young street prostitute to live in.

“Anything else?”

“Our guys spoke to one Blueline cabbie who remembers picking her up several times at the Nelson Street address—”

“Ahah!”

She shook her head. “Most times he just delivered her to Rideau Street. Dr. Rosenthal would hand him the money and give him an address—the cabbie didn't remember it, but it was somewhere in the east end.”

“Well, it would be in their log.”

“No, because as soon as they drove off, the woman would tell him to drop her on Rideau Street, and she'd ask him for the extra money.”

Green processed the implications. “So the good doctor was trying to help her, but she was playing him.”

She shrugged. “Probably she had a habit to feed. A lot of basically decent girls can find themselves in a bad corner.”

The glimpse of compassion surprised him. “Anyone on the streets give any more leads?”

She nodded. “She's a familiar face. She's been around for a few months, off and on, but she's not homeless. That's to say, the outreach people don't know her, and she never uses the shelters or kitchens.”

“No. My guess is she goes back to a regular home in Beacon Hill.”

“Maybe tonight... It's Saturday night, she might put in an appearance. I can tell the patrols to keep an eye out. She'll surface eventually.”

“We can't wait for eventually. I want you to release that photo to the news media. We can get it on the local news websites and maybe on
TV
bulletins right away.”

“But sir, that may drive her underground. By tonight we should—”

“We can't afford to wait.” Levesque was frowning at him, puzzled. “Think about it, Marie Claire. Omar's father has just tipped off Nadif that Omar remembers a hooker. We don't know how she fits into the murder scenario, but we can bet one thing. If she was there, if the boys think she saw anything, then Nadif will be looking for her. He'll want to find her as badly as we do, and he's not as nice as we are. So we'd better find her first.”

Green rounded the corner into the hospital waiting room and stopped in surprise. The small
TV
in the corner was on mute, but the crime scene on Rideau Street filled the screen. A moment later, the grainy photo from the pawn shop video flashed up. That was fast, Green thought.

The waiting room was nearly empty. Only a couple of seats were filled by visitors likely waiting for medical updates. He located the remote control on the table nearby and hunted among the various buttons for one that would turn on the sound.

“The woman is not a suspect,” the
TV
suddenly blasted. “But police are interested in questioning her about the events of last Saturday night, when the seventy-five-year-old retired psychiatrist was assaulted on Rideau Street.”

The visitors glared, and Green hammered the volume button. “As of today, the police have few leads. Anyone with any information concerning the identity or whereabouts of the woman in this photo is asked to phone Ottawa Police at 613-555-2333.” The camera then panned out over footage of yesterday's crash, focussing on the crushed remains of the Impala beneath the pick-up truck. “The investigation took an even more tragic turn yesterday when a motor vehicle crash killed one of the police witnesses, a young University of Ottawa woman from Timmins who lived in Dr. Rosenthal's building. Two Ottawa Police officers were also injured in the crash, which occurred when—”

A groan sounded behind him and Green whirled around to see Sullivan standing at the entrance to the room with his IV pole. Sullivan sagged against the wall, his face grey with horror.

Green leaped to his side. “Jeez, Brian! What are you doing out of bed?”

Sullivan was shaking his head back and forth. “I knew it. I knew it. I fucking knew it.”

Green dragged him to a chair and thrust him into it. Sullivan bent forward, trembling. His breath came in deep, shuddering gasps. Green looked frantically around for a staff person, but the halls were empty. He clutched Sullivan's arm.

“You feeling all right? Dizzy? Any pain?”

“They're supposed to walk,” came a voice from the corner, where an elderly woman sat reading a book.

“Feeling all right?” Sullivan said. “I just killed a woman, Mike.”

“That was an accident.”

“That was me! Losing control, passing out! That was this fucking useless body! Killing some poor kid who should have had sixty good years of life left in her.”

Green groped for Sullivan's pulse. Not that he would know what he was feeling, but at least he could tell how fast it was going. Where the hell were all the doctors! And why were they letting him wander around unattended?

Sullivan shook off his hand. “Do you think I give a fuck about me right now? Did you see it? Tell me what the hell happened!”

Green thought fast. He wanted to shout for help, he wanted above all to be anywhere but here, forced to tell his friend the worst news of his life. He took a deep breath to slow his own racing heart and tried to project a soothing command. “Okay. I will tell you. But first I need you to sit back, breathe deeply, and calm down. Let me go get a nurse—”

“No! They'll try to stop you from telling me, like they have all day. Don't you think I already suspected the worst? That I'd killed people? Maybe mowed down a mother and her half dozen little kids? Why do you think I came out here? So I could see what they were hiding!” Sullivan sat back, his blue eyes blazing and his face now bright red. “I'm calm enough. You fucking tell me.”

“You did not kill half a dozen little kids.” Green searched for a way to ease into the revelation. “You were bringing me a photo line-up to show my witness, a young woman who rented from Rosenthal. You remember that?”