This Thing of Darkness (31 page)
Him and me both, Green thought. “Can you tell us anything at all about the man? Such as his clothes or his voice? Did he sound old or young on the phone? Did he use sophisticated language or...”
“He sounded plain. Rather like a used car salesman. Although...” She cocked her head. “It's nothing I can put my finger on, but he seemed to have a very slight accent. I couldn't tell you what kind.”
T
he setting sun was peeking out from under the cloud cover by the time Levesque and Green had finished with Mrs. O'Malley and headed back downtown to the station. The whole sky was an eerie pink. Green spent the drive on his cellphone, trying to track down the dark green car. Neither the families of Omar Adams or Nadif Hassan owned such a car, but David Rosenthal was still a mystery. He and his white van were registered at the hotel he had given to the crash investigators, but neither had been seen all day.
Green had a bad feeling about the stranger who had come looking for Caitlin. Had the police's own efforts to identify her on the street tipped off the killer that she might be a threat? Had the police inadvertently placed her in harm's way? Once they arrived back at the station, he sent Levesque home to her dinner engagement while he headed straight down to speak to the duty sergeant for the Central District.
“We need to step up our efforts to find this young woman. We now have a nameâCaitlin O'Malleyâand a possible street name, Foxy.” He handed his colleague a new photo that Mrs. O'Malley had given him of Caitlin smiling in her graduation photo. Although not classically pretty, the young woman looked proud and full of hope. The sergeant studied the photo, his expression softening. Within minutes, he had it scanned and sent out to the in-car computers.
“You figure she's downtown somewhere?” he asked.
“She's probably on the run, but her mother swears they haven't seen her or given her money, so I figure she'll be trying to make some. The fastest means she knows is soliciting, so that's where we should concentrate our efforts. The Byward, Vanier, maybe even as far west as Gladstone and Hintonburg.” Green stopped to consider other avenues open to them. “We should assume she knows we're looking for her, but she doesn't know that someone else is looking for her too. I don't know if she's streetwise enough to figure that out. I also don't know how rational she is. She may be right out of her tree.”
“Dangerous?”
“Well, she is a paranoid schizophrenic, so depending on how she's interpreting things... The mother says she's never been violent, but maybe she's never been this frightened before. It appears that she and Dr. Rosenthal were close. If she did witness something last Saturday night, she may have become completely unhinged.”
“Gotcha.” The sergeant reached for his computer again. “I'm going to send out special instructions to the guys to make sure they get back-up before approaching her. And to take her to Emerg if she loses it, instead of bringing her here.”
Green turned to leave. He felt bone-tired. “I want to be informed the minute you have any word.”
“What about her home? You want some surveillance on that in case she goes there?”
Green weighed the pros and cons. A car, even an unmarked one, would be so conspicuous on that quiet street that it would likely scare Caitlin off entirely. At the end of the afternoon discussion, the mother had seemed convinced of the possible danger to her daughter and of the police's desire to help. She had his cellphone number and had promised to contact him if she had any news.
On the other hand, parents often had their own solutions.
“Do regular drive-bys, and if Patrol spots any signs of unusual activity, phone me.”
Finally, gratefully, Green headed out into the night. He stopped first at the General Hospital to visit the young patrol officer and was relieved to find him in fairly good spirits, surrounded by flowers and cards. The mood was less upbeat at the Heart Institute. Sullivan was dozing and not to be disturbed. He'd been agitated and medically unstable much of the day, prompting the doctor to order more sedation and slap a ban on visitors outside the immediate family.
“His wife's on guard in the lounge,” said the nurse with a knowing tilt of her head towards the waiting room. “No one's getting past her, least of all you.”
“But his healthâis it improving?”
“He's stable now. That's good news. Beyond that, you'll have to speak to his wife.”
Green steeled himself. He was frayed and exhausted, the adrenaline of the hunt still pumping uselessly through his veins. He doubted he had the strength for Mary's rage, yet he owed her that. He owed Sullivan that.
She was curled in a soft-backed vinyl chair by the wall, her head propped on a pillow and a hospital blanket draped over her. She'd made no effort with her make-up or hair, leaving her vulnerability on show. She looked asleep, oblivious to the couple who chatted quietly in the opposite corner, but when Green entered the room, her eyes flew open. She stared at him, her expression cold.
“How are you holding up, Mary?”
“He's had a bad day, thanks to you.”
“I know.” He sat down opposite her. “He would have heard it on
TV
anyway. I'm glad I was there, to give some perspective.”
“We wanted forty-eight hours, Mike. So his heart wouldn't go haywire.”
“Did it?”
Her lips drew tight. “No. We were lucky, if you can call it that.”
“He's a strong man,Mary. He's survived this,he came out of the coma without any obvious damage, his heart is hanging inâ”
“But he'll never be the same.” She threw off her blanket and leaned forward. “Whatever you do, let him make the decisions he has to about his future. This is not about you this time, Mike. So you just step out of the way. Be a friend. If you know how.”
He told himself it was Mary's fear talking. She had nearly lost her husband, and now she was fighting tooth and nail to keep him safe. But her words were still smarting when he arrived home to be greeted by an exuberant four-year-old, a large dog wagging her tail shyly, and a teenage daughter all dressed up and ready to go out the door.
Hannah stiffened when he wrapped her in his arms, but she was too startled to protest. He kissed her head as he pressed her close. She had cost him many sleepless nights, but slowly an intelligent, self-sufficient young woman was emerging. Considering the parent-child minefield of broken lives and hopes, he was incredibly lucky to have her.
“It's been a really rough couple of days,” he said when he could trust himself. “Thank you for helping out. And for being you.”
She twisted away to peer at him dubiously. The black eyeliner was back tonight, but not the death's door make-up. “It's okay, Mike. Do you need me tonight?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “I could use the company,” but instead he shook his head. Ruffled his son's dark hair. “No, we'll manage. Go have a good time.”
She paused on the threshold, and he wondered if there was a hint of reluctance in her parting. Had he made a mistake in sending her away?
More likely wishful thinking, he decided as he fetched Modo's leash and Tony's jacket, and the three of them set off for a walk. The rain had blown over, leaving another starlit night with a threat of frost. Tony held his hand and skipped along the sidewalk, chattering about the Nintendo Wii his friend had just received for his birthday and reminding Green that his own birthday was less than two months away. Four years old, and already the gaming culture had its hold.
Avoiding Snakes and Ladders this time, father and son spent the evening building an elaborate space station from the hundreds of lego pieces that littered the living room floor. Throughout it all and the bedtime stories that followed, Green kept half an ear tuned for his cellphone, hoping for news that Caitlin O'Malley had been found. By midnight, he figured the prostitution street scene should be at its height, and he struggled to stay awake. Modo was snoozing at his feet, and
The Daily Show
was blaring from the
TV
when Sharon arrived home. She kicked off her shoes and peered into the living room, smiling in surprise.
“You're still awake!”
“I'm waiting for some news from Patrol.” He muted the television. Stifling a yawn, he ambled stiffly over to kiss her.
She seemed distracted. “Why?”
He returned to sink back on the sofa with a sigh. “We've identified that woman in the photo you saw last night, but we haven't found her. I have Uniforms out scouring known prostitution areas.”
“So she is a prostitute.”
He shook his head. “She's actually a math PhD, but she's mentally ill. She turns to prostitution sometimes when she's on the street.”
Sharon slowly uncoiled her scarf from her neck. “Did you check her home?”
“Her parents haven't seen her. That's not unusual, according to the mother.”
She hung up her scarf and jacket. “Is it so urgent? I mean that you have an
APB
out on her?”
“Someone else is apparently looking for her too. It may be the killer looking to eliminate a witness. We need to find her first.”
Sharon said nothing as she disappeared into the kitchen. He checked his phone yet again to make sure the battery was still charged. She reappeared with a dish of ice cream and a glass of red wine. “Want some?”
He shook his head. “My mind is fried as it is.”
She sat down beside him and ate a spoonful of ice cream. She looked worried, and he brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “Hard shift?”
“I've been wondering whether to tell you this. It's kind of unethicalâwell, no, it
is
unethical. That woman's name, is it Caitlin O'Malley?”
He swung on her, eyes wide. “You know her?”
“She was admitted to Six North this week. She's the one I mentioned to you, who came in through emergency, off her meds and extremely agitated.”
He sat up excitedly and reached for his phone. “I should call the hospital to put some protection on her.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “No, Mike. Wait.”
“I won't say you told me, honey. In fact I'll get Levesque to make the call. But bottom line, I don't want anyone getting to her.”
Sharon had been shaking her head impatiently. “She's gone. She was discharged this afternoon.”
He was flabbergasted. “After less than a week?”
“The nurses were equally appalled, believe me, but her father assured us he could take care of her.”
“Her father!”
She nodded. “He came and signed her out this afternoon.”
“What time?”
“Just before my shift. About two thirty.”
Green's mind raced over the time line. That was before his encounter with Caitlin O'Malley's mother. Either the woman didn't know what her husband had done and they hadn't arrived home yet, or she'd been lying through her teeth.
Whichever the case, the parents had some explaining to do. More than six hours had elapsed since his conversation with Mrs. O'Malley. Six hours for Patrick to arrive home with Caitlin, six hours for them to settle her in and take stock. Mrs. O'Malley had Green's phone number and knew damn well that he was waiting for news on Caitlin's whereabouts.
He reached for his phone again and this time dialled the official surveillance unit. These guys knew how to be inconspicuous. No suits, no late-model, spit-polished Impalas. They would pick a vehicle to blend in.
The sergeant on duty sounded harried. Saturday night was a busy one in surveillance.
“Have you got bodies you can spare?”
“Life or death?” the sergeant grumbled.
Green chuckled. “Maybe. I want unmarked surveillance on Patrick O'Malley's house on Rothwell Drive, and I want a notation of every single movement inside the house, upstairs and down.”
F
or the second day in a row, Green was up at seven a.m., this time dragging himself downstairs and fumbling around the kitchen to brew sufficient caffeine to sustain him. His dreams had once again been tortured by visions of the crash, of Lindsay's crushed body and Sullivan's grey face. He forced them aside with an effort and slumped at the table with a huge mug of French roast in his hand, trying to sort out the priorities of the morning. Despite his worries about Sullivan and the young patrolman, and his concern for Lindsay Corsin's family, he realized, once enough caffeine had penetrated his neurons, that safety of the public came first. He phoned downtown to get an update on the surveillance of Caitlin O'Malley's house.
There was not much news. The surveillance team reported that the lights were out when they arrived, and although they had come on briefly in a downstairs room at 2:36, 3:20 and 4:57 a.m., no one had entered or left the premises all night.
Someone had a restless night, Green thought, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances. Through the sheer curtains, the surveillance team had been able to establish the movement of at least two people inside, but not three. The team also reported one vehicle visible in the drivewayâa
BMW
sports car registered to Patrick O'Malley. The garage doors were closed, however, and Green knew the Lexus was probably inside. The Motor Vehicle Licensing Bureau listed a third vehicle in the family, this one a Lincoln Town car registered to the law firm of O'Malley, Hendrickson and Potts. Without a search warrant or a clandestine peek, however, there was no way to determine whether it was also in the garage.
Green sipped his coffee, considering the facts. The vehicles were in exactly the same configuration as yesterday. The surveillance team had seen no usual activity at the house, other than evidence that someone had been awake a few times. Furthermore, they had seen only two people, not three. Was Caitlin even there?