Читать книгу Once Upon a Time - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 7

One

September 2nd, 1939

I hear her footsteps on the mossy riverbank See the sun-flamed red of her hair As it swoops in rhythm to her run. She tilts her head, shields her eyes. But still I hide, drunk with hope and disbelief. She has come to me, my rebel princess. Slipped the sentinel gaze of the village, huddled in its uneasy rest. Run across the cornfields behind the mill And out to meet her poet. Nothing to offer her but words spun into shimmering webs, to catch her lofty dreams. She spots me then and smiles, And I open up my arms.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, the old man pulled the sweaty tuque off his head and scowled at the snow through the window. His long plaid scarf pricked his neck, adding to his annoyance. He could see little through the pale wintery light in the room, but he could hear his wife thumping around in his bedroom upstairs. Drawers opened and closed.

What the hell was the woman doing up there! He felt a surge of alarm as he remembered the letter. How stupid of him to leave it in his desk drawer. He should have burned it as soon as he got it. When they got back home tonight, he would. Once today’s ordeal was over.

He looked around the room at the refuge he had sought to create. A modest parlour with a crumbling brick fireplace, a scratched piano and shelves haphazardly stacked with books. All he had ever wanted was this little cottage in the country, his pipe, his whiskey and an armchair by the fire. A retirement cottage, he had told his wife. Far from cruel strangers and prying eyes, from a past that still lurked in his head.

Yet in the end he had not escaped. He leaned back in the armchair and willed away the sudden tears that filled his eyes. She would see them—nothing escaped her—and she would fuss. Not overtly, for she knew better, but quietly, fluttering around the kitchen to make him tea, watching him with silent, questioning eyes. And now, because of that monstrous letter, how long before she knew?

A final thud roused him, and he looked up to see her descend the stairs, pulling a pair of thick woollen gloves over her gnarled hands. She frowned at him as she came across the room, picked up his tuque from the window ledge and pulled it firmly back down on his head.

“I’ll get the car and pick you up out front,” she said.

He heard the thump of her cane as she shuffled through the kitchen and pushed open the screen door against the thick snow on the porch. He glanced at his watch impatiently. Of all days for snow! She’ll take forever crossing the yard, so scared she’ll fall and break something again. And then she won’t be able to start the car.

He heard the shriek of the shed door, the thud of the car door, and finally the screech of the ignition. He cursed her aloud. Too heavy handed, no feel for an engine. But then he heard a hoarse, reluctant cough as the old Dodge came to life, and he hauled himself to his feet.

Outside, he squinted against the stinging snow as he watched her inch the car across the yard. She will think it’s too cold for me to stay in the car. She’ll want me to go into the clinic with her and wait in a room full of creaky old women. More complications.

He surveyed the white fields in silence as they drove down the long lane to the highway. They were going to be late, perhaps too late. But once they were on the highway, the driving was good. The roads were salted a glistening black, and the trip to Ottawa took only two hours, even at her cautious seventy kilometres an hour. The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm against the snow, and he stared out the window at the passing farms, his thoughts lost in winters long ago. Wondering, worrying…

“If I’m through in time,” she said, “we’ll drop by Margaret’s for early tea.”

Her intrusion into his thoughts startled him. “We just saw her on the weekend.”

“But they’re on our way home, and she’s expecting us.”

“I want to get back,” he replied peevishly. He felt her eyes upon him with their questions, but thankfully she said nothing.

It was eleven-thirty when she pulled into the parking lot at the hospital, and the wind whipped the snow about. He made no move, and when she turned to him questioningly, he said, “I’ll wait here.”

“But it’s cold outside today. And I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”

“Leave me the keys. I’ll start the car if I have to.”

She seemed about to argue, so he closed his eyes and feigned fatigue. A moment later the door opened, and he felt a frigid blast of air. Halfway out, she paused, hunched against the swirling snow, and turned to him.

“Get out, woman!”

Pressing her lips shut, she pulled herself out and slammed the door. He watched her battle the drifts with her cane as she crept across the road to the clinic door, then he reached inside his duffel coat for his small flask. With a grunt of pleasure he brought the flask to his lips and took a long swallow. Maybe that will keep trouble away, he thought, and glanced at his watch. 11:37. He peered out through the frosted front windshield. Nothing moved. Not a car, not a solitary soul. He’d never put much stake in hope, but he allowed a faint stirring of it as he settled down to wait.

* * *

When the call came in to Major Crimes, Ottawa Police, Inspector Michael Green had been in his office battling paperwork for over four hours, and his mind was mush. The time was 1:43 p.m. He heard the phone ring on Sergeant Brian Sullivan’s desk, heard a brief exchange of words, and then Sullivan’s brisk trademark: “On my way.”

Green waited three minutes to allow Sullivan to check in with the Staff Sergeant—no point in treading on too many toes—then headed out of his office, hoping for a casual interception. But the squad room was empty. Sullivan’s desk was locked, and his duffel coat was gone from its peg. Damn.

Restlessly, Green wandered down the hall to the coffee machine and returned with his fifth cup of pallid fluid. He left the door to his little alcove office ajar, inviting someone to interrupt him as he returned to his monthly report.

Some time later, his phone rang, and he pounced on it, hoping it was Sullivan asking for his help. Or Superintendent Jules, head of Criminal Investigations, saying a call had just come in on a multiple homicide in Rockcliffe Park. Not even that. He’d settle for a wino who had rolled into the Rideau Canal.

But it was his wife Sharon, who had a day off from the hospital. She sounded cheerful, and in the background he could hear his infant son babbling excitedly.

“I just wanted to warn you the roads are really slippery, honey. And the driveway has six inches of fresh, fluffy snow on it. Pristine and untouched. To celebrate our first snowfall in our new house, I bought you a shovel at Canadian Tire.”

Ah, the joys of home ownership, he thought. My very own stretch of asphalt from the street to the Dreaded Vinyl Cube in the cow pastures of Barrhaven. He could almost see the twinkle in her eye, but at this point even shovelling would be a welcome relief. “Don’t worry, I’m coming home early tonight. Maybe even five o’clock.”

There was silence on her end of the line, followed by a chuckle. “Five o’clock? Inspector Green is coming home at five o’clock?”

“We’re having a temporary lull in murders in this town. It’s too damn cold even for the crooks. I’m doing nothing but supervision and paperwork.”

“Paperwork!” He could hear her astonishment. “Boy, you must really be desperate. Next thing I know, you’ll be inventing a murder!”

He was still laughing when he hung up, but the smile faded quickly at the sight before him. Piles and piles of jumbled phone messages, computer print-outs and unread articles. He had not joined the force to push paper, but in the past couple of years, he’d felt himself being edged farther and farther from the streets and into committee rooms. He was drowning in paperwork and its electronic cousin, e-mail. At the click of a mouse, minutes of meetings and drafts of endless policies could be sent whizzing off to every middle manager on the force, whether they wanted to read them or needed to know them. All to prove how important and busy the sender was.

The Chief of Detectives, Adam Jules, knew better than to expect Green to respond in kind, but Green’s job as administrator required some minimal output of paper. Annual reports were nearing, and the new Police Chief liked neat arrays of statistics to take to City Hall. He liked stats such as types of crimes reported, solvency rates, crimes by district, etc. To Green, homicide investigation was the cream of police work, as well as the only work he was good at, but to Chief Shea it was a mere footnote in his vast law enforcement vision. Fortunately, the press and the public loved homicides, which was why Jules forgave Green his abysmal administrative skills. Seeing his potential fifteen years ago, Jules had yanked Green off the streets, where he’d been mediocre at best, and into criminal investigations, where his tenacious drive and intuitive intelligence had given him one of the highest solution rates on the force.

But that was before amalgamation with the outlying forces had turned a tightly-knit, street level police force into a lumbering bureaucracy, and himself into little more than a cog. He sighed. How long since he’d been out on a call?

Some time later, his phone rang again, but this time it was Jules’ clerk, wondering when she might expect his report. She had a gaping hole in her computer screen where his Major Crime statistics were supposed to fit. He toyed with suggesting that she make up whatever she wanted, provided it made him look good, but decided against it. Jules’ clerk was very young and pretty, but she had absolutely no sense of humour. Choosing the wiser course, he mumbled vague promises and hung up—just in time to see Brian Sullivan emerge from the elevator and stride to his desk, shedding his heavy duffel coat. His face was ruddy from the cold. Casually, Green drifted over.

Despite the difference in their ranks, he and Sullivan had been friends for over twenty years, ever since they’d been rookies together on the streets, and there were many times Green longed to trade places with him, so that he could roam the streets again while Sullivan sat on committees tossing around words like “vision” and “strategic plan.”

“So, how’s it going?” Green asked.

Sullivan looked up from the notebook he had just opened. “It’s a bitch out there. Crazy for November. What will it be like by January?”

“Tropical. You know this country, we wouldn’t want to be boring.” Green sat on the edge of Sullivan’s desk. “What was the call?”

Sullivan shrugged and scribbled a few notes absently. “Oh, nothing much. An old man was found frozen to death in the parking lot at the Civic hospital. I went out to the scene, talked to the parking lot attendant and the man’s family, but it looks like natural causes. I was just going to write it up, pending MacPhail’s report.”

“What does MacPhail say?”

“There were no real signs of violence, so one of the regular coroners attended the scene. But MacPhail will do the autopsy tomorrow.”

“What do you mean ‘no real signs’?”

“He has a small gash on his forehead. But not enough to knock him out, let alone kill him. This was a big guy. He was old, but he must have been quite something in his youth, and even today it would take a lot to knock him down.”

“What did the family say? Where did he get the gash?”

“They don’t know. But he probably got it as he fell. The wife said he’d been sick for months. Short of breath, lousy colour. She’d been trying to get him to see her GP.”

“All the same, did you check motives?”

A scowl flitted across Sullivan’s face as he turned to Green. Standing, he was at least five inches taller and almost twice as broad. His linebacker physique had expanded to hang slightly over his belt, and high blood pressure was just beginning to mottle his handsome face. “How long since I made detective, Green? Twelve years? You think I don’t cover the bases? The guy had no enemies and no money to brag about. But he was a drunk, it was written all over him. He probably stepped out of the car, passed out and never knew what hit him. End of story.”

“End of an old man, too.”

“I know that. I’m just reporting the facts, I’m not passing judgment.” Sullivan’s scowl softened. “It’s fifteen below out there today. You know better than anybody what that kind of cold can do to someone with heart disease. He might have gone outside, taken a deep breath and dropped like a stone. I’m telling you there’s nothing here. This is just another sick old drunk whose number finally came up.”

Maybe so, thought Green. Disembowelled dead bodies were not his favourite part of a murder investigation, but by tomorrow morning, when the autopsy was scheduled, he might be in need of a small break from his paperwork

* * *

Dr. Alexander MacPhail was a tall, rangy Scot with a shock of wild grey hair atop a long, pockmarked face. He grinned as he pulled off a pair of surgical gloves, tossed them into a bin nearby and clapped Green on the shoulder. His rich Scottish brogue boomed in the empty basement hall of the hospital.

“Hello, there, laddie! I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s the air up there in the upper echelons these days?”

“Stifling.”

“Aye, hot air tends to be.” The pathologist cast him a mischievous glance. “So would you just be down here for the fun of watching me work, or would you be wanting something?”

Green grinned. “You know what I think about your work.”

“A dirty job, but someone has to do it.”

“I’m just curious about the old man in the Civic parking lot yesterday. Any information on him yet?”

MacPhail gestured to the closed door marked MORGUE but painted an unlikely lime green. “Do you want to come in and meet him? I’ve just sewn him back up.”

“No thanks.” Green hoped he didn’t sound too hasty. “What does it look like?”

“Well…actual cause of death was hypothermia. But the old bugger had a whole book full of medical problems. Chronic hypertension, arteriosclerosis in both coronary and cerebral arteries, cirrhosis of the liver, some atrophy to the brain. Any one of his parts could have failed him temporarily at that moment.”

“What about the contusion? Brian said he had a gash on his forehead.”

MacPhail chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint you, laddie, but it wasn’t enough to kill him. Stun him, perhaps. He could have slipped in the snow and struck his head. In a man his age, that might have been enough to disorient him. He may have lain there resting, not even aware he was cold.”

“Was it a fresh wound, then?”

“Inflicted shortly before death, yes.”

“What kind of instrument? Sharp, blunt, big, small?”

“A smooth, rounded object about an inch wide.” MacPhail used his hands to demonstrate the size and shape. “Not much bleeding, and it didn’t get any chance to swell before he landed face down in the snow.”

“Is it consistent with someone trying to strike him?

The pathologist’s eyes twinkled. “More consistent with hitting his head against a hard object—probably the car mirror—as he was falling.”

Curiosity outweighed his distaste. Bracing himself, Green nodded towards the morgue door. “Can I see him?”

The morgue was a brightly lit room painted the same incongruous chartreuse as the door and filled with huge stainless steel receptacles. MacPhail had the consideration to pull a sheet over the body, but Green could tell from the contours of the sheet that the man had been big, probably once muscular. MacPhail had replaced the cranium expertly, but the face was mottled red and white. It was a large, beefy face topped by thinning strands of white-blonde hair. Glazed in death, the eyes were a pallid brown run through with red. Green focussed on the gash on his forehead.

“Strange shape for a car mirror.”

“Car mirrors come in all shapes. Laddie, trust me. This one is a natural causes.”

Probably, Green acknowledged, but he’d seen enough blunt instrument traumas in his career to feel a twinge of doubt.

* * *

It wasn’t much to mark the passing of a life—a name, age, address and next of kin. Eugene Walker, eighty. Home was a rural route number in the rolling farmlands of the Ottawa Valley between Renfrew and Eganville, about a hundred kilometres west of Ottawa. But MacPhail’s notes indicated that until the funeral, his widow was staying at her daughter Margaret’s home here in the city.

Even when he pulled up to Margaret Reid’s elegant westend home, Green wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for. Three cars stood in the double drive—an aging Dodge, a small hatchback and a shiny silver BMW. He extracted his police badge and held it in readiness, but even so, the look of surprise was blatant on the face of the man who answered the door. Green suppressed a smile. He never tired of that look, which reassured him that he was not growing staid and inspectorish. He was forty-one years old, but because of his light build, his youthful face, and the fine spray of freckles across his nose, he looked barely thirty. His baggy trousers and navy blue parka gave more the impression of a city postman than a high-ranking police investigator. Green had learned to cultivate this lack of physical presence. Like a good spy, it allowed him to move and observe unseen.

Still, at times he would have appreciated a more authoritative bearing. As now, when grieving relatives needed someone to lean on, although the relative standing before him did not appear about to crumple into his arms. The man looked in his mid forties, dark-haired and probably handsome at one time, but now baggy-eyed and gone to seed. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, but that was his only concession to grief. He frowned as if Green were a pesky vacuum salesman interrupting his busy day.

Green introduced himself briskly, apologized for the intrusion and asked to see Ruth Walker.

“Is this really necessary, Inspector? She’s resting, and she already spoke to a police officer yesterday.”

“Yes, Sergeant Sullivan. I’m just following up. Your name is?”

“What’s this for? The old man had a heart attack, he’s dead. It was quick and painless. What else is there to know?”

“Routine. Are you Donald Reid, his son-in-law?”

“I don’t see why you need to know, but yes.” He blinked several times. When Green continued to stand in the doorway, he stepped back with a scowl.

“Very well. Come in.”

Mrs. Walker took about five minutes to come downstairs, and in the meantime Green absorbed impressions about the house. It was a quiet house, not just hushed in grief, but constrained. Everything had its place. The living room was furnished in expensive woods, testimony to the family’s material success. Colour-coordinated watercolours adorned the walls, and china figurines sat on the mahogany table tops. Not a room for children, Green thought, although he had glimpsed a flash of teenage boys in the kitchen as he passed by.

When Mrs. Walker entered, she was leaning on a younger woman whom Green assumed to be her daughter. Dressed in red slacks and a red and white striped sweater, with not a strand of her cropped black hair out of place, Margaret Reid was the image of her living room. She perched emotionless on the edge of her chair.

Her mother, on the other hand, wore an old beige cardigan and ill-fitting tweed skirt. Her hair billowed in a cloud of grey curls, and her face was blotched with tears. Green had expected a broad, heavy farmer’s face, but Mrs. Walker was delicately boned, with deep-set blue eyes and a finely pointed chin.

“How do you do, Inspector? I’m Ruth Walker. How may I help you?”

Green was not an authority on British accents, but he had watched enough Masterpiece Theatre productions to recognize this one as rich, precise and public school. The tilt of her head and the grace with which she extended her hand made him feel shabby. He drew out his notebook and summoned all the dignity his cheap parka permitted.

“First of all, let me extend my condolences on the death of your husband. The way he died so unexpectedly must have been a shock.”

She eased herself stiffly into a heavy velvet chair opposite him. Her blue eyes held his, but he thought they moistened.

“Yes, it was. Although I suppose I ought to have seen it coming. I’ve known for some time he wasn’t well.”

“In what way? Dizzy spells?”

“Not exactly. More shortness of breath.”

“Had he ever fallen before?”

She hesitated, and in her instant of discomfiture, the surly son-in-law snorted. “Lots of times. He always had one bruise or another. It means nothing, detective.”

Green kept his eyes on the widow. “Had he seen a doctor recently?”

Ruth looked across the coffee table at him. Through the veil of grief, he saw a faint smile. “One didn’t take Eugene anywhere. If he chose to go, that was fine. But he didn’t choose to.”

“Why?”

“I expect because he didn’t want to hear the bad news. He was from the old country, Inspector. They’re rather more fatalistic than you are over here. When it’s time, it’s time. No use fighting it with pills and machines.”

“Do you think he was depressed?”

“No, not exactly depressed. I mean, he was ready to go. I think he had…” A spasm crossed her face but disappeared before he could analyze it. “…made his peace.”

“Almost as if he were waiting for death?”

Her eyes fixed his intently. “Exactly. It was always Eugene’s dream to retire to the country, and once he did, he rarely left the house. He spent most of his day in his chair, just looking out the window.”

He smiled. “Dreaming about Trafalgar Square, probably. Or his favourite country pub.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Green saw Margaret open her mouth, but Ruth shot her a quick glance which silenced her. “Eugene liked to say that his life began when he came to Canada,” Ruth said. “All that happened before was best put behind us. He never talked about it.”

It jarred with the picture Green had begun to paint. He thought of his own father, who also spent his days sitting in a chair, but who had his own reasons for not wanting to relive the past. Green wondered what Walker’s reasons were, and if Ruth’s glance at Margaret had been meant to silence her. “Odd,” he mused casually. “Most elderly people love to reminisce. Sometimes the old days are all they talk about, especially if, like your husband, they have little else they can do now but sit in a chair.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes, a disheartening way for a strong, proud man to spend his last days.”

There was a quiet finality to her words, as if she were closing the door. Respecting that, he moved on. “Can you run through what happened yesterday?

At this point the surly son-in-law, who had subsided in the corner, re-entered the fray. “Inspector, I really don’t see the point in this. Ruth, you don’t need to put yourself through this.”

“I don’t mind, Don. He has a job to do.”

Green admired her quiet dignity. With barely a quiver, she recounted the events of yesterday from their departure to her discovery of the body at one o’clock. Only when she described the sight of him did she falter, pressing her fingers to her lips. Green sensed Don beginning to rise, and he held up a warning hand.

“Where was he in relation to the car?”

“I’m not sure. He—” She broke off, her hands fluttering up to her face at the memory. “He…he was lying alongside the car, his head towards the front wheel, I think.”

In perfect position beneath the side mirror, he thought. “Driver’s side?”

“Oh, no, passenger’s side. Eugene hadn’t driven in years.”

“I’d like to look at the car. Is it one of the cars outside?”

“Yes, Don fetched it.” She turned. “Don, could you…?”

Seeming relieved to be rid of him, Don led Green outside to the Dodge Aries. Despite its age, there was little rust, but mud coated its sides. Salt stains from the recent drive into the city formed an irregular splatter pattern over the mud, but there were no unusual marks on the passenger side of the car. Nor were there any protruding edges; even the door handles were recessed.

But even more importantly, because it was such an old car, it had no mirror on the passenger side.