Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (43 page)

The Altar Boy and the Thief

To bystanders, the postmodern structure overlooking Bay Street at College appears like some whimsical concoction spirited away from Las Vegas or Disneyland rather than the Metro Toronto Police headquarters. Outside, blue glass and pink marble glint in the sun. Inside, light streams generously down onto the atrium floor from ten stories above. Who says the police commission doesn't have good taste?

Dan arrived a few minutes before nine. The uniformed blonde at the desk smiled when he said his name.

“Constable Donna Blake,” she said, reaching across the counter to shake his hand. “We've spoken on the phone many times.”

Dan returned the smile. Although it was their first face-to-face encounter, he and Donna had had several heated though not entirely antagonistic exchanges over who he could and could not have access to by telephone after hours. What had started off as a minor irritation on both sides transformed over time to a form of passive-aggressive flirting, as though he'd been nibbling on her neck and she would occasionally slap him before letting him progress a little farther each time.

“A pleasure to meet you in person, Donna,” he said cordially.

She looked at him appraisingly. “You too. You look kinda like you sound on the phone — rough and ready.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Oh, don't worry,” she said, giving him the once-over. “It's a compliment. What's your gym?”

“Extreme Fitness.”

“Really? Mine too. See you there sometime?”

“You never know.”

She checked her book. “Go up to the second floor and head down the left-hand corridor to the very end. There's a coffee machine and a bench. You can wait there till someone comes for you.”

He felt her gaze on him as he turned and walked to the elevators.

Once upstairs, he didn't have long to wait. He'd been sitting less than a minute when a junior officer with a clipboard approached.
Another kid,
Dan thought.
Or am I just getting that much older than everyone else?
The officer flipped a page, inquired Dan's name in an aggressively efficient manner then indicated a door across the hall.

“In here, sir. They're expecting you.”

Dan entered and was momentarily thrown off guard. Four faces looked up expectantly. There, seated with the two officers he'd encountered at the morgue, were the chief of police and Dan's former-boss, Ed Burch. Ed was one of the few authority figures Dan respected wholeheartedly. He relaxed somewhat on seeing him, but was still aware he'd entered potentially hostile territory.

The room was designed to make newcomers feel less intimidated at being in the headquarters of one of the biggest power bases in the country outside of the military. Tall bay windows allowed in considerable light, as though the architect had been tasked with providing a police station that, while grand, in no way resembled a place of incarceration. It was a pleasant anteroom in Buckingham Palace, say, versus the dreaded Tower of London. Soft music gave it the aura of a spa, while ferns drooped lazily from ceiling hangers. Ironically, the hanging plants reminded Dan of the slaughterhouse, which, he knew, was what had brought him here today.

While Dan had already sized up the two younger officers, he knew the chief by reputation only. The man came forward, hand extended, a silver-haired bulldog with a disarming grin that settled back into a habitual frown as soon as it was no longer needed. Dan had been reluctantly impressed with the man's ability to present himself in public through various media appearances, as well as his efforts at building community relations with the force. Here was a man who worked hard to look and sound good. Still, Dan wasn't convinced they'd be on the same side of the barricades come the revolution. As chief of police, he believed in the unquestioned right of authority and had shown that, for good or bad, he would do anything to perpetuate and uphold it.

The chief indicated the officers Dan had met earlier. “Let me introduce you. Detective Danes and Constable First Class Pfeiffer, this is Mr. Dan Sharp.”

Here, once again, were the force's bratty Jack Spratt and his awkward, shuffling wife. The missus — Detective Danes — was her usual hesitant self. This was the man who belonged to the voice on his answering machine, making the other one Constable Pfeiffer. The latter eyed him through barely raised lids. He was chewing gum again. Dan remembered the shorter officer's cockiness. There was something slightly restrained about him here in the presence of the chief. An invisible leash, perhaps. In the clear light of day, his uniform and the faint outline of a moustache were about the only things that differentiated him from an adolescent punk. That wasn't possible, of course. With his First Class officer designation, there would have to be at least four years between his entering the force and receiving First Class status. So maybe twenty-three or -four, at the very least. Still, he reminded Dan of a truculent teenager on the lookout for trouble.

Neither of the officers extended a hand. Dan nodded to the pair, who remained seated across the table. “We met at the morgue yesterday,” he said simply.

“Both Detective Danes and Constable Pfeiffer are among the most highly regarded men on the force,” the chief said then turned to Ed. “Now here's someone you know.”

Dan greeted his former boss. “Hello, Ed. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Good to see you again, Dan.” A comforting smile and honest yet discerning eyes. Well built, with the self-confidence of a former pro hockey player.

Addressing his officers, the chief continued. “Mr. Sharp I know of by reputation only, but that reputation is an impeccable one corroborated by his former employer, Ed here, who was one of my best cops until the son-of-a-bitch went freelance on me.”

Ed acknowledged the backhanded compliment with a smile.

“But I'm getting ahead of myself,” the chief said. He turned directly to Dan. “Dan — may I call you Dan?”

Dan nodded. “Certainly.”

“The reason we've asked you here today, as I'm sure you realize, is because of the body you discovered at the old slaughterhouse.” His hands shuffled the papers on the desk before him, but his sharp blue eyes stayed on Dan's face.

“The man's name was Darryl Hillary,” Dan said.

“Yes. I understand you had been hired to find him by his sister …” Here he looked down. “… Darlene Hillary.”

“That's correct.”

The chief looked back up at Dan again, taking
his measure like any good tailor or undertaker. “None of what I'm saying here today is under overt censorship of any sort, but we would appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself for now. For reasons of discretion, we can't have the media finding out certain details I'm about to disclose just yet. Are you good with that?”

Dan inclined his head slightly: open to suggestion but not willing to be led down the garden path. “I'd have to know what it is first before agreeing to treat it confidentially, but if it's above board and nothing to do with me then I can give you a reasonable assurance I'll keep my mouth shut about it.”

The chief looked to Ed. “You described him pretty well, Ed,” he said.

“Dan's a straight shooter,” Ed said, nodding.

Dan wasn't taken in by this surface dusting of comradely jousting. While he trusted his former boss, Ed had ties to the police that predated his relationship with Dan. Perhaps one loyalty outweighed the other. What lay behind this surprise meeting was impossible to say. He still needed to know why he'd been brought here. What more he could tell them that he hadn't already indicated in his statement the previous evening remained to be seen.

The chief gave him another shrewd look, as though trying to decide how much to confide in him:
Are you for us or against us?
As far as Dan was concerned, they'd invited him to this game of poker, so it was up to them to reveal their hand first.

“I won't mince words here, Dan. The reason we've asked you to come by today is because Ed suggested you might help us.”

Dan's ears pricked up. This was the first he'd heard of being asked to help the police.

He turned to Ed, who took up the narrative briefly.

“That's right, Daniel. I've been asked to work as a special consultant on the case, in light of my capacity as a former police officer. When I heard what was being asked, I suggested you might have a part to play in it.”

The chief's icy eyes travelled from Ed back to Dan. “We believe yesterday's murder is related to a larger investigation into a child prostitution ring, which has now taken on the proportions of a Canada-wide operation. Detective Danes was assigned to lead the operation in the GTA. With Hillary's murder, Constable Pfeiffer has just taken over as evidence officer. That's where Ed felt you might help us, Dan.”

Dan noted how the chief liked to say his name, as though to bring him further into his confidence. He was struck by the suggestion that Hillary's death had to do with larger issues of child exploitation. Had his sister lied again about her brother's record? Was he in fact a more serious offender? Dan felt a tingle of repugnance to think that Darryl had done something worse than sleep with his underage girlfriend.

The chief continued. “With this recent death, we feel we may have the makings of a serial killer on our hands.”

Dan stared at him. “You're saying it's not the first?”

The chief nodded. “This past spring, an ex-priest was murdered in Quebec. Although we're pretty sure we know who did it, his killer was never found.”

“What makes you think the two murders are related?” Dan asked.

The chief gave a significant look to Constable Pfeiffer, who addressed Dan for the first time.

“Like the victim you found earlier this week,” the young officer said, “the ex-priest was severely beaten and had his left ear cut off.”

Dan recalled the change in attitude of the cop on duty at the slaughterhouse. Once the officer learned of the severed ear, Dan was suddenly no longer welcome on the site. Someone had murdered an ex-priest, and now a poet, cutting off their left ears. What did it signify? Perhaps more importantly, what did the two men have in common?

The chief cut in. “When Sergeant Danes phoned me with his report, I knew immediately what we were dealing with. You may recall that part of the National Sex Offenders Registry was dumped on the Internet last year. Both the ex-priest and Hillary were named on it.”

Dan recalled reports of the incident, the inconclusive findings as to whether it had been deliberate or not. He held up a finger. “Excuse me. Was it proved to be an accident? The names being dumped on the Internet?”

The chief nodded in acknowledgement. “We still don't know how it got there, but the information was deliberately released by person or persons unknown.”

Dan thought about Darlene Hillary's pleading question:
How did these people even find him?
she'd asked.
They have their ways
, he'd replied, thinking of the registry at the time. It gave cold comfort to know he'd been right.

The registry was created to compile information, including current addresses, phone numbers, and identifying markings, such as tattoos, that would enable police officers to finger possible suspects in sex-related crimes. Providing up-to-date personal information was mandatory on the part of the offenders. The public was never supposed to have access to the list, however. That the registry had been leaked on the Internet was cause for alarm for any number of reasons, including the possibility that someone might try to harm or kill anybody named in it, as seemed to have been the case here.

“So you think someone is targeting known sex offenders?”

The chief nodded. “That's my best guess at present. The only thing linking the two victims is that their names were on the Sex Offenders Registry and they both had their left ear cut off.” He scrutinized Dan's face. “Are you fine with everything we've told you so far?”

“Except for one thing. I understood from Hillary's sister that he had applied to have his name removed from the registry on the grounds that he was not likely to be a repeat offender.”

A look passed between the chief and Danes, who shrugged.

“We don't know anything about that,” the chief said, turning back to Dan.

“Okay.” Dan nodded. “I still don't know why you're telling me this.”

The chief opened a file and placed it in front of Dan. Clipped to the dossier was the photograph of a young man in jeans and a sweatshirt. His cherubic face and curly dark hair made him look like the junior member of a boy band.

“This is the chief suspect in the murder of the ex-priest, Guillaume Thierry. He was an altar boy at the church in Montreal where Thierry worked. Eventually, Thierry was convicted of sexual interference with a number of minors, all male. He went to jail for eight years and was released just two months before his murder.” He put a finger on the photograph. “The young man's name is Gaetan Bélanger. He was a minor until a few days after Thierry was killed.”

Dan had been listening intently. “Why do you think it was Bélanger instead of one of the other abuse victims?”

“Speculation, mostly, but he blogged his intentions to harm Thierry and was heard uttering death threats against him when he was released.”

“He blogged it?” Dan asked, surprised.

“Yes. He put his intentions online. That doesn't make the threat more real, but it does constitute a clear motive.”

“Physical evidence?”

“Nothing conclusive.”

“Anything connecting him to Hillary?”

“Nothing yet. What we know of this kid since his molestation is that he's lived by thievery. He was caught twice over the past few years, both times before Thierry's murder. Nothing major, but the second instance earned him a term in juvenile detention. The first time he was caught stealing from a church — not the one where he was molested, but I'm sure there was a connection in his mind.”