Читать книгу This Thing of Darkness - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 9

Four

Green’s late night walk around the block with Modo was a ritual he’d grown to love. His huge dog padded peacefully at his side, stopping to browse the scents in the bushes along the way, unhurried and unconcerned. Their street of modest old homes tucked behind overgrown maples and shrubs was never busy, and by ten o’clock it was a morgue. Not a single person passed him in the crisp autumn night. It was a time he could lose himself in thought, sort through the events of the day and ready himself for the next.

Some nights when Hannah was home to babysit, Sharon would join him, and they would walk hand in hand. She’d talk about a difficult patient, or he’d talk about a heartbreaking case. It was a refuge in their busy lives, for which he was grateful.

He hadn’t expected to like Modo. When he’d agreed under duress to take in the abandoned hundred-pound mutt—half Lab, half Rottweiler, as close as the vet could tell, but with the temperament of a dwarf rabbit—he’d sworn it was only for a month or two until a proper home could be found. Green had never had pets as a child. His home had been full of irrational fears and long, secretive silences that were oppressive to an only child. His mother had flinched at the mere sound of barking. Forever seared into her brain was the memory that dogs had terrifying magical powers to sniff out hiding places and hunt down fugitives. But Sharon had grown up with dogs in her happy suburban Mississauga home, and she’d taken to the traumatized animal instantly. Modo and Green had needed much longer to trust and value each other.

That evening, Sharon was still doing laundry in preparation for the busy week ahead when he set off for his walk. Random threads of the homicide investigation drifted through his mind as he walked. He considered the theory he was constructing about the victim, once a respected psychiatrist but torn from his moorings by the death of his wife. Like a man of faith, he had questioned the very nature of his professional beliefs. He’d sold his gracious home and bought instead a rundown turreted mansion, where he had to tolerate garbage bins in his front yard and student parties overhead. A solitary man who went out for his daily walk dressed in a suit from his professional days. A creature of habit like Green’s own father, but proud, elegant, unafraid, and unlike Green’s father refusing to be intimidated by the human dangers on the street. Refusing to be violated, even when the violators came to his own home. Ready to fight.

Tragically, ready to die.

For once, the walk did not put Green in a better frame of mind. It did not energize him for the week ahead but left him feeling outraged and ready to fight as well. When he came back inside, he found Sharon curled up on the living room sofa with her petite feet tucked under her, sipping a cup of tea. Finally at rest. He made himself a cup and sank down beside her, reluctant to drag her back into the ugly reality of murder. In the end, his expression must have given him away, because she snuggled against him.

“What is it, Mr. Bigshot Detective?”

“You know the man who died on Rideau Street? We still need a positive ID, but it looks like he was a psychiatrist named Samuel Rosenthal. He used to work at Rideau Psychiatric.”

She pulled back, looking puzzled. Recognition widened her eyes. “Dr. Rosenthal! Of course. I didn’t know him while he worked there, but everyone knew of him. My God, poor man.”

“Was he controversial?”

“Well, I remember we often had to patch up patients whom he’d taken off their meds. He was into patient empowerment and natural remedies. St. John’s wort for bipolar disorder, for example.”

“Do you remember anything about what he was like?”

She took a slow, thoughtful sip of tea. “It was awhile ago. His patients were very loyal to him, so I think he meant well. And he was right, sometimes we are far too quick to pump patients full of drugs when psychotherapy or a healthy lifestyle change would be better. Drugs are faster and cheaper for the healthcare system.”

She was slowly waking up. She uncurled herself and set down her tea as if to better marshall her arguments. Sharon had been on this high horse before, railing against a public healthcare system which funded doctors to dole out pills during fifteen-minute sessions but not other therapists who might actually talk to the patients to help them sort out their lives. It sounded as if Sam Rosenthal had shared her view.

“Still,” he said, “he must have made some enemies that way.”

She chuckled.“Looking for a colleague driven mad by him contradicting their advice?”

Or a patient. The thought came out of the blue and seemed far-fetched the moment he formed it. Rosenthal had barely practised in years.“Did he treat all kinds of problems?”

“I don’t know. Most of the trouble came with his young patients. Misdiagnosed bipolars or first-episode schizophrenics. Those were the real tragedies.” He must have looked blank, for she twisted around to study him dubiously.“Do you really want to know all this?”

“I don’t have much to go on with this guy. The working assumption is a random gang assault, but you know me. Never overlook the longshot.”

She laughed. “Yes, the champion of zebras. Okay. Schizophrenia can be a devastating lifelong disease, but if there’s any illness where proper drugs can make a huge difference, this is it. But to have the best outcome you should catch them early, before or during their first psychotic break. Typically that’s in their teens or early twenties, where it can be hard to distinguish from other problems, especially if there is illicit drug use. Kids, even their parents, don’t want to accept the diagnosis either, so they’re willing to grasp at straws.”

“Like a nice herbal remedy.”

“You got it. Megavitamins or some fancy diet. My favourite is Bach’s flowers, based on some guy’s wacky ideas from the 1930s, as if we haven’t learned a thing about the disease in the decades since then. I’m not saying Western medicine has all the answers in the treatment of mental illness and there’s no place for alternative approaches, but the field is full of quackery and fake science, trading on people’s fears and hopes. That was the biggest problem we saw with Rosenthal’s patients. They’d been treated at the hospital for schizophrenia or bipolar and stabilized on the latest drugs. Then after discharge they’d trot off to Rosenthal complaining of side effects, and he’d take them off. A few months later, bingo, they’re hearing voices again and they’re back inside. With each psychotic break, their life spirals down. Jobs are lost, marriages destroyed, dreams and plans shattered.”

Green had seen enough schizophrenics to know they often stopped taking their meds of their own accord anyway. They’d cross his path when they ended up on the streets acting crazy enough to scare people. He’d heard their reasons often enough. They felt so good after awhile on the meds, they decided maybe they’d been cured and they didn’t need them any more. Or they hated the side effects, which gave them the shakes and made them feel they were living their life inside cobwebs. A doctor like Rosenthal, who told them they didn’t need the meds after all, would have been greeted like the Messiah.

If they ever realized they’d been duped, however unintentionally, they would have felt betrayed.

Betrayed enough to seek revenge? he wondered, then shook his head at his own crazy thoughts. Blame it on the midnight hour. Levesque had her own, much more sensible line of investigation.

A shadow fell across his desk. “You’ve been a busy beaver.”

Green looked up to see Brian Sullivan lounging in the doorway. To his relief, the head of Major Crimes had a crooked grin on his freckled face and a twinkle in his blue eyes. Green hadn’t known what the fallout might be from his foray into the trenches yesterday, but now he guessed Sergeant Levesque was too smart and ambitious to complain about the meddling inspector to her NCO directly, particularly when it was common knowledge in the ranks that Green and Sullivan were not only former partners but close friends.

He returned the grin with a shrug. “What’s a little help between friends? It was my day off, and I just used my connections to speed things along.”

“She’s smart and she’s good, Green, even if she doesn’t know about your legendary investigative skills. Before her time.” He grinned. Nice payback, Green thought.“She looked into that B & E you mentioned, had read the whole file before roll call this morning. Doesn’t look like there’s much there. Might have been a random thing, or maybe they were looking for drugs or a prescription pad. They turned the place over, but Rosenthal didn’t have either.”

“He wasn’t a big fan of prescription drugs,” Green said.

“We’re concentrating on the gang thing, trying to ID the four punks on the security camera.”

Sullivan’s six-foot-four footballer’s frame filled most of the doorway, but nonetheless Green could get a glimpse of the bustling squad room behind him. Tilting his head, he signalled Sullivan to come in and shut the door. Sullivan obliged, sinking into the plastic guest chair and propping his huge feet on the corner of Green’s desk. The grin had faded from his face, leaving a wary, questioning look.

“There probably is no connection between the break-in and the attack,” Green said. “But I think Levesque should send someone around to reexamine the apartment and reinterview neighbours. The guy made enemies, or at least pissed people off with his manner, and in today’s hopped-up, macho drug culture, that can be enough.”

Sullivan’s expression turned smug.“Already done. She’s got Jones working on a search warrant for his place right now. We still need to confirm the ID, so she’ll be looking for the usual— dentist’s name, personal papers, date book, and next of kin.”

“Any luck tracking down the son?”

“Not yet, but Levesque assigned it to Gibbsie. He’s checking public records. So far there’s no record of a birth, so it must have been out of province.”

“Maybe even out of the country,” Green said, remembering Rosenthal’s roundabout academic journey from South Africa through the UK. “But if he’s in a system anywhere, Gibbs will find him.” Green wondered how the son would react. Losing a family member to murder was a horrifying shock, no matter how estranged the family was. “MacPhail doing the autopsy this morning?”

Sullivan nodded. “But it will be weeks before we get any DNA results back from the lab. There is a hell of a backlog, even when we mark top priority on it. I still think those surveillance tapes and forensics are our best bet. We’re also talking to Lowell from the Guns and Gangs Unit and getting the names of all the known members operating in the neighbourhood, and all the wannabes—”

“That’s just about everybody!” The Byward Market was one of the central clearing houses for the drug trade. Hardcore addicts and weekend partygoers alike headed down to its narrow, jumbled streets to make a score.

“These men are black—possibly Somali or Ethiopian from what we can tell from the piece of crap tape—so we’ll concentrate on those groups first. We also think Rosenthal inflicted some damage. There’s tissue under his fingernails, which he kept well manicured, by the way—the guy was a class act—and some blood and hair on the rubber tip of his cane. Our punks may have some visible war wounds, so we want to get a look at all possible suspects ASAP.”

“Sounds good. Keep me posted, especially if you locate the son. Meanwhile I’ll poke around into this guy’s background using the connections I have. If I turn up anything, I’ll pass it on.”

Sullivan lifted his feet off the desk and took a deep breath as if gathering his forces for the day ahead. “Sure, Mike. Whatever makes you happy.”

Green laughed and waved towards the door. “What can I say? Most times the hoofbeats are horses, but you got to keep an eye out for zebras. Now get out of here. I’ve got some pointless action proposal to prepare for Superintendent Devine. She’s revving up her campaign for Deputy Chief into high gear, so I have to solve the spike in domestics by five o’clock today.”

Omar twitched aside the curtain and peered down the street. The cop car was still there, parked in front of Nadif ’s house. Omar hadn’t seen them go in, but they’d been in there an awful long time. Omar itched to phone Nadif to find out what was up, but he didn’t dare. For one thing, his fucking father would probably hear the phone click and pick up in the middle. For another, Nadif wouldn’t be able to tell him a thing with the cops standing two feet away.

He paced back into the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror. He’d cleaned up the snot and blood the best he could and spent most of Sunday in bed, but he still looked like he’d hit a brick wall. There were scrapes on his arms, his nose was swollen, and one eye was half shut. He’d thought of washing his hoodie and jeans in the bathtub, but he was afraid his father would freak out at the mess. Instead he’d bundled them in a ball and shoved them in the back of his closet to deal with when he could sneak out to the garbage bin in the alley behind. His father had slapped him under house arrest for a month, and even now he was downstairs keeping an eagle eye out.

Omar wished he knew what story Yusuf and Nadif were telling the cops. Maybe they’d all settled on a story Saturday night, but he couldn’t remember. Just like he couldn’t remember what the hell they’d done after they left the park or how the hell he’d gotten blood all over himself. His stomach still felt like the bottom of a sewer, but at least his headache was gone and his brains were back in place. If the cops came, he’d have to wing his version, admit to all the stuff he could remember that was legal—probably even cop to the joints, no big deal—then say he went straight home. Tripped on the curb and fell down on the way. He’d stick to that, say it was all he could remember. Nadif always said if you’re going to lie, best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

Maybe Nadif wouldn’t squeal on him. Maybe the cops just wanted to talk to him about his court case, or check if he was following his bail conditions. Jeez, Omar you little dick, that’s probably it. Nothing to do with you and the blood and the hole in your memory.

But then he saw Nadif ’s door open, and two cops came out. Plain clothes, not uniforms. Shit, what did that mean? He watched as they stood on the sidewalk looking up and down the street, before one of them pointed straight at Omar’s house, and they started this way.

The asshole had ratted him out after all.

Omar dropped the curtain and pressed himself against his bedroom wall, hoping to be invisible. Maybe he could hide and pretend he wasn’t there. But he had three stupid little brothers downstairs who’d be happy to show the cops the way, and a hardass father who always believed in paying the price for all the bad you’d done and then some. His father had seen the blood. Knew he’d come home at three a.m., drunk, wasted and puking his guts out. His father had barely said a word to him all weekend; the cold shoulder was his favourite father-son thing, and he’d forbidden Omar’s mother to talk to him either. Not that she did much anyway. But the old man would turn him in over a fucking marijuana joint, for chrissakes.

He was beginning to feel that slow burn that happened every time he thought about his father, and just then the doorbell rang. Squeals of excitement from his moron brothers, a yell for silence from his father, then nothing but voices in the hall, too quiet for him to hear. Footsteps scrambling on the stairs, the bedroom door bursting open, two brothers bouncing up and down, excited because the cops were here. They were asking for him. Dad was talking to them.

Omar clamped his hands over his brothers’ mouths. “Just wait!” he whispered. “Don’t make the cops’ job easier. Let’s see what Dad’s going to do.”

He signalled his brothers to stay put, and he sneaked out of the room onto the landing, then edged down the first few steps of the narrow staircase. He stopped just above the stair that creaked. The voices in the hall were clear. His father didn’t yell, but his voice could crack stone it was so cold.

“Sorry, gentlemen,” he was saying.“I wish I could help you. I’ve raised my boys to respect the police, although Lord knows that’s hard around here sometimes. Lots of temptations and problem kids to lead a boy astray. But Omar’s not here at the moment. I sent him on an errand to the store. Lentils. My wife’s making lunch, and suddenly there are no lentils.”

Omar heard the easy humour in his father’s voice, like one guy talking to another about the whims of women. But the cop that answered had no humour in his voice.“When will he be back?”

“Well, my wife likes a particular kind of lentils, so he may have to go all the way to Vanier. On his bicycle. I told him not to come back without the lentils, so it may be an hour. What’s this about?”

“Can you tell us where he was Saturday night?”

“Right here, in his room.”

“He didn’t go out any time between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.?”

“He was here doing homework, and I saw to it personally. Twenty years old and still in adult high school because he thought he’d take the scenic route through his education. I want to make sure he crosses the finish line. That’s the least a father should do.”

“So he was here all night? You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely.”

Omar heard that dangerous little edge creeping into his father’s voice, but the cops wouldn’t recognize it. There was silence in the hall. Omar realized his heart was almost breaking his ribs. What the hell was this about? Dad, who hammered them on the head about honour and honesty— Dad was lying? Bold-faced, calm, friendly. Lying, like it was natural as day.

“We would still like to question him about an incident his friends were involved in,” the officer said. “Here’s my card. Have him give us a call as soon as he gets back.”

“Absolutely, officers. I’ll pass it on. What incident is this?”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Adams. Have him give us a call.” The door squeaked open and closed again. Omar found he was holding his breath. Waiting for his father’s next move.

It wasn’t long in coming. Omar had barely made it back to his room when his father was on him, hauling him by the ear into the bathroom. “You little turd,” he hissed. “You’re going to scrub this room until every speck of dirt and whatever else you brought home Saturday night is gone. Then you’re going to scrub it again. You’re a disgrace, and if you bring trouble to your mother and brothers, I’ll cut you off like you never existed. Don’t think you’ll ever see us or a single dime of support ever again. You were here all Saturday night studying for that math credit you’ve been working on. And if your worthless gangsta friends say different, they’re lying. Got that? Lying. That’s your story, or you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

I already wish that, Omar thought through the pain ricocheting through his head. I’ve wished that ever since I was old enough to wish.