Honour Among Men (5 page)

February 23, 1993. Fort Ord, California
.

Dear Kit . . . Man, I'm not very good at this diary business. The padre said we should try it, to record one of the greatest experiences of our lives and maybe help us keep perspective if
things get tough. But it feels dumb, so I've decided to write it as a letter to you, even though I can't actually mail it. It feels good talking to you instead of just myself
.

It's been go-go-go since we got down here to do our combat training. Section attacks, platoon attacks, fighting in built-up areas. It freaked out some of the guys because they thought our mission was just going to be keeping the peace, but we're training on all these guns and practising live-fire simulations. It's kind of scary because you wonder what you got yourself in for, but, boy—does it ever get the adrenaline going. I'm getting pretty good with my
C
-7, and even the general purpose machine gun
.

The great news is that Danny's been made 2I
C
of my section because the Princess Pats regular master corporal got moved out to man one of the
TOW
s. These are really cool anti-tank missile systems that can take out a tank at almost 4000 metres, even in the dark. The
CO
says we we're not supposed to have them, but we're taking them anyway. The
UN
doesn't really understand what's happening on the ground, he said, and he wasn't going to make Canadian Forces into sitting ducks. I'm glad he'll be in charge when we go over
.

It was ten o'clock that evening before Green's thoughts returned to the case. His wife Sharon was working the evening shift at Rideau Psychiatric Hospital, so the challenge of feeding, bathing, and putting their rambunctious, two and a half year-old son to bed had fallen solely to him. Green spent nearly half an hour snuggled up in bed with him, reading the antics of Robert Munsch and Dr. Seuss, which had Tony bouncing all over the bed, a million miles from sleep. Green
tried the warm milk and lullaby routine that Sharon used, but it still took his entire repertoire of lullabies and a back rub before the little boy finally crashed into sleep from pure exhaustion. Green brushed a kiss to his tousled head and slipped off the bed.

No sooner had Green tiptoed out of his room when the bedroom door opposite cracked open and an elfin face peered out. The pulse of rock music escaped the room.

“Shh-h!” Green whispered urgently.

“What's for dinner?”

“And hello to you too.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. She was barely five feet tall and had a delicate, heart-shaped face that radiated innocence. That illusion had allowed her to get away with everything short of murder in the first sixteen years of her life, after which her mother, Green's first wife, had thrown up her hands and shipped her across the country to live with her father. In the beginning, Green and Hannah had been complete strangers, but Hannah had been living with them for over nine months now, and at least now she occasionally spoke to him of her own free will. Even if it was only when she wanted something.

“I picked up cheese blintzes from the Bagelshop,” he added.

She sighed. “Figures.”

He'd learned the hard way to ignore the bait. The reality was, she had her father's unerring instinct for hidden truths, and it had taken her no time to notice that, in his forty-plus years, he had learned very little about the workings of a kitchen. Deli take-outs had served him well in his ten years between wives, and at the end of a long day he rarely had the desire or energy for culinary creativity.

Feigning nonchalance, he headed downstairs. “They're in a
bag on the counter. How about heating them up while I walk the dog.”

Modo, their massive Humane Society refugee, was sprawled the length of the living room with her head by Sharon's chair, snoring blissfully and showing no inclination for a walk. After repeated calling, she hauled herself up and lumbered over to the door.

Modo was Sharon's dog, and like Tony, she only accepted Green's clumsy care-giving when Sharon was not around. Even so, she left the house reluctantly and paused often to look anxiously back towards the house while they made their tour around the block. Green returned home feeling thoroughly inadequate. The fragrance of cheese blintzes and butter cheered him considerably. He found Hannah in the kitchen, chatting on her cellphone and brandishing a spatula over a frying pan.

“I suppose you want salad too,” she said.

“That would be nice.”

“Honestly, Mike,” she muttered, and returned her attention to her cellphone.

He walked up to her and planted a kiss on her blue, curly-topped head. Quickly, before she could duck away. A murmured thanks was as mushy as he dared.

He set the kitchen table for two, but once Hannah had spooned the food onto two plates, she picked up hers and headed into the living room to turn on the
TV
. Green opened his mouth to protest, but when the sounds of yet another
Simpsons
rerun filled the room, he gave up in defeat. She would only have sat opposite him in silence anyway, oozing resentment.

Instead he read the paper while he ate, then fed the dog and cleaned up the kitchen. Weariness began to steal into his bones. What was he coming to, when by ten in the evening he was
ready to crawl into bed? He stuck his head into the living room.

“Want some tea?”

Hannah glanced at him, and he could see the ambivalence play across her face. Why was every single move between them like an elaborate dance, with him bumbling around to learn the steps?

She shrugged. “As long as you don't make it too strong, like Sharon's.”

Under Sharon's exacting tutelage, Green had learned to make her version of a perfect cup of tea. He diluted it by half and carried two cups into the living room. The
TV
was on, but to his surprise Hannah was sitting on the floor surrounded by schoolwork. She didn't move when he placed her cup at her side. She was actually on track to pass all her courses this semester, a feat she'd never accomplished in the years of living with her mother. He stood over her, wondering if it was safe to comment. Finally, she looked up at him and, to his amazement, flashed a mischievous smile.

“Thanks, Mike,” she said, then picked up her cup and book, and disappeared upstairs.

He sank onto the sofa, propped his feet on the coffee table, and closed his eyes, too tired to figure her out. Brian Sullivan's advice rang in his ears. “If you love the kid, that's going to show.” Sullivan was raising three teenagers and had been giving Green a crash course in raising his own these past few months.

God, he missed Sullivan. He could barely remember a time when the big Irish lunk hadn't been right at his side, trading theories, sharing rants and dishing out his home-spun wisdom. Full of disillusionment and self-doubt, Sullivan had gone off to another department in search of that elusive promotion. Major Crimes was mostly newcomers now, none
of whom remembered the old days on the streets. Or remembered Twiggy as anyone more than a fat old lady who stuck her cup in your face. And who was on a slow, deliberate march towards death.

He sat on the sofa, letting the chatter of the
CBC
National News wash over him. Campaign trail rhetoric, media overkill, yet another poll showing the Liberals trailing the Conservatives by a slim margin. Panic had not yet taken over the Liberal camp, but the mudslinging and cheap promises had ratcheted up a notch. Green tuned it out in disgust. He felt lonely, lost in recollections about Twiggy, and hoping Sharon would be home soon. But long before she arrived, he was fast asleep.

With three murders on the go, an inexperienced staff sergeant in Major Crimes, and a superintendent snapping at his heels, Green was anxious to get an early start the next morning. He left Sharon to contend with the household and picked up a bagel and coffee from Vince's Bagelshop on his way to the police station. When he arrived, however, Staff Sergeant Larocque was already out in the field, as was Bob Gibbs. But Sue Peters was parked outside his office, wearing yet another hideous suit, this one bright pink, perhaps to flatter her fire engine hair. Recently one of the female detectives had tried to encourage a more restrained palette, the result being the black and white checkerboard she'd worn yesterday.

Normally, Green never paid the least attention to fashion, his own or others. He ran a perfunctory comb through his floppy brown hair once a day, but only got it cut when it began to seriously impede his vision. His slight, five foot-ten frame fit passably into a size 38 regular straight off the sales rack of the nearest chain store. Departmental dress code required that he wear a suit and tie, so he tried to wear one that had a minimum of stains and odours. The suits were always grey, which hid the dirt well and required no colour coordination expertise whatsoever. His male colleagues, and many of the females as well, seemed to agree that, in a job
where you're likely to get puked and spat on, grey polyester was the way to go.

But Peters was oblivious. Standing by his closed office door with her notebook clutched to her chest, she was a beacon all the way down the hall. As he approached, her face lit.

“Gibbsie's tied up at the autopsy this morning, sir, so I thought I should report to you.”

It was ridiculously outside departmental protocol, but Green's curiosity won out. Balancing his bagel on his coffee, he unlocked his tiny alcove office and ushered her in. Without waiting for an invitation, she flounced into the guest chair and plunked her notebook on the desk. Green saw page after page of large, clumsy scrawl.

“Do you have a summary report, Detective?” he cut in just as she drew breath to begin.

She hesitated. “Not yet, sir, but I thought you should know what I've done, so you can give me my next assignment.”

“Can you give me just the highlights then? I don't need a blow by blow.”

She pouted. “Our Jane Doe didn't go to any of the shelters.”

He wondered how much he could trust that information, given Peters' sledgehammer interview style. “At least as far as the shelters remember.”

“They'd have remembered the purse, sir. I took a picture of it with me. And she didn't frequent any of the known street hangouts either.” Peters listed them off. It was an impressively thorough list.

When he said as much, she beamed. “All right,” he said. “Next I want you to check the train station staff, especially—”

“I already did. Last night, and again just now to catch the morning shift. One of the porters this morning remembered
the purse. Our Jane Doe came in on the Montreal train a couple of weeks ago, she didn't want any help with her bags—”

“Bags? Plural?”

“One other suitcase. More like a duffel bag. He remembers she asked him how to get to an address in Vanier. She didn't want a cab, so he gave her directions for the bus.”

“What address in Vanier?”

“He couldn't remember. He figured she had family or friends there.”

Green digested this information with surprise. Not only had Peters used her initiative and tracked down a very useful lead, but she must have been up well before dawn to do so, if she'd slept at all. He felt a twinge of shame.

“Very good, Peters. Put it all in your report and . . . have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, sir. At the train station while I talked to the porter. I bought him a cup of coffee.”

“Good. After you finish your report, I want you to return to the train station. Take a street map and buy the porter lunch. Read him every street in Vanier, and we'll see if we can jog his memory.”

She gave a broad smile as she slapped her notebook shut. “That's what I thought, sir. I've already asked him his lunch hour. Will you tell Gibbsie where I've gone?”

He let the nickname pass as he watched her leave. She'd no sooner clumped into the elevator than Green caught a movement in the squad room, and he looked up to see Bob Gibbs's gangly form striding through the desks towards his office, clearly a man on a mission. Green's hopes quickened. Could it be that this unlikely pair was going to crack this case all by themselves?

When Gibbs had crowded into Green's tiny office, the
unmistakable odour of death and disinfectant permeated the air. Green had been about to close the door but thought better of it.

“You've come from the autopsy.”

Gibbs folded his lanky frame into the guest chair and nodded with alacrity. Green was pleased to see that he was flushed a healthy pink rather than sickly green. The young detective had only attended a couple of autopsies, but this was another sign that he was coming into his own. He didn't even bother to consult his notes.

“It was murder, sir. Without a doubt. There were big bruises around her neck and some abrasions on her arms and legs which MacPhail thinks are consistent with her thrashing about during a struggle.”