Once Upon a Time (12 page)

*    *    *

The puzzle still tugged at him as he left the Reid house. He glanced at his watch and saw it was nine-thirty, still early yet. A quick phone call to the babysitter revealed that all was quiet on the home front. Tony was fast asleep, and Sharon wouldn't be home from work for at least two hours. There was still time to pursue one more small lead.

He stopped for soup and coffee at Tim Hortons and asked to borrow the Yellow Pages from the acne-faced teen behind the counter. About a dozen phone calls later, he finally roused an antique dealer in Centretown willing to take a look at the black box. The man lived above his shop, and after much grumbling agreed to come down. Green drove past the shop twice before spotting the tiny, lead-windowed door wedged in between a photographer's studio and a Chinese take-out. The old English lettering on the door read “Fine Antiques and Jewellery, Harry Fine, Prop.”

The door activated a small bell as he pushed it open and stepped inside. Shelves overflowing with china dishes and knickknacks ran the length of the narrow room, and Green had to negotiate carefully to avoid knocking over the tables and stools that blocked the aisles. Dusty curios occupied every surface.

A stubby, barrel-chested man emerged from the back and rolled towards him.

“Mr. Fine? I'm Inspector Green.”

Fine ignored the outstretched hand and peered up at Green over his half-glasses. He nodded at the box tucked under Green's arm.

“That it?”

Green removed the box from its bag and held it out. Fine snatched it without a word and lumbered back down the aisle to the rear of the store. When Green caught up, he had already spread the contents out on his battered desktop and was adjusting the beam from a lamp. Slowly he turned the keys over in the light. Then, with a grunt, he peered through his jeweller's magnifying glass.

“I'm not making any promises,” he muttered as he focussed the glass. “I'm not saying I know much about Eastern European antiques, or tools and locks. I just know more than the rest of the clowns in this town.”

“Can you tell me where it's from?”

Fine turned the box over impatiently and rapped his fingers against the bottom corner. “Orzokow. The box is made by this fellow Kressman. Handmade.” Fine studied the bottom with the glass and nodded. “This Kressman knew his trade. Nothing shoddy about this piece.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“If you stop asking stupid questions, maybe a thing or two.” Fine turned abruptly and disappeared through a curtain. He reemerged two minutes later with an armful of musty books. Keeping one eye on him, Green browsed through the store in a bored and distracted way. Although he loved the crumbling landscape of the inner city, that sense of history had never extended to bits of dented kitchenware. Half an hour crept by. On a dusty mahogany tabletop in a corner, he found a small pair of silver candlesticks and was checking the price when Fine appeared at his elbow, scowling.

“Those are special ceremonial candlesticks. I won't sell them to you.”

“I know what they are, Mr. Fine,” he replied with a smile. “Shabbas candles. I wouldn't buy them at that ridiculous price anyway.”

Understanding flickered in the dealer's eyes, and Green thought he even looked sheepish. “They're from Poland. An old lady brought them to me last year before she died. They were all she brought with her out of the Holocaust.”

Green turned them over curiously, noting the delicate engraving of a bygone era. Neither of his parents had brought anything with them out of the Holocaust. He felt oddly reluctant as he set the candlesticks back down on the shelf.

Fine's scowl returned. “You want to know about your box or not?” He held up the hammer and the set of keys. “I can't tell you much. This is not my area. Maybe in Toronto or Europe you'll find a dealer who knows more. It's an interesting item. With its false bottom, no ordinary tool box. And the things inside were not made at the same time. The tools are older, solid iron, hand forged by a blacksmith. Good job. Probably this guy Kressman. See the small ‘K' at the base? The keys are machine cast and not very good quality.”

“What kind of locks?”

Fine shrugged and held up the keys, which measured four to six inches. “Big locks. Padlocks, maybe?”

“Like a peasant might have for his barn or gate?”

Fine consulted his pages of keys and shook his head. “These keys are mass produced, and the metal seems very poor quality. Very porous. And I think that's an old German company. If I had to guess, I'd say they were made during the war, when they used lots of recycled metals. Likely for some big buildings like warehouses or storage depots. A peasant would probably have older locks, made by the local locksmith. Just a guess, but for
bopkes
in the middle of the night, that's all you get.”

*    *    *

By the time Green had returned the bags to the property room, he knew he was in trouble, for what had begun as a minor line of inquiry had taken up more than three hours. Sharon might be home by now and would have found out from the sitter that he'd spent a grand total of two hours with his son before rushing out again. At least he had cleared up the kitchen and collected the CDs Tony had scattered on the floor.

When he arrived home, however, he found all the lights out and Sharon just settling down to sleep. She gave him a bleary frown as he greeted her.

“Just kiss me goodnight and I'll give you hell in the morning, Green. I'm dead.”

Contrite, he leaned over to kiss her. “Everything okay, honey? Brian or Adam call?”

“Lots of people called, except of course my husband. I had a nice long talk with Brian Sullivan.”

He sized her up warily. She was languid and half asleep, cuddled among the pillows with the duvet up to her ears. With her eyes half closed, she looked too weary to be much of an adversary.

“Did Brian say anything?” he ventured.

One eye opened fully, and for a moment Green caught a glint of triumph. She smiled.

“Yes, he said to give you two messages. First, that he's found out something really exciting. And second, that he was taking his phone off the hook till nine o'clock tomorrow morning.”

Seven

February 20th, 1941

We rock to the swaying of the truck,
stranger pressed against stranger to stay warm.

Heads droop, eyes close as the truck drones on.

Ahead to the east, an endless ribbon of grey,
Behind us, a horror burned forever in my soul.

Tadeuzs' farm seized for the superman in our midst,
A neighbour with Prussian ice in his veins.

We woke to shouts, jackboots overhead.

The neighbour counting hens,
inspecting his bounty,
lifting the straw…
Gestapo guns herded us on the truck.

Driving away, I turned to wave good-bye.

Saw Tadeuzs and Marzina roped to the old pine,
spinning slowly in the wind.

“Green, I don't think
at seven o'clock on a goddamn Sunday morning!”

“So take another sip of coffee. I'll wait.”

Sullivan hunched over the plastic table and cradled the mug of Tim Hortons coffee in his large hands. He glared across at his colleague, who sat clean-shaven and smiling opposite him. Green had come knocking at his front door at six-thirty in the morning.

“How do you do it? How much sleep did you get?”

“Enough. We've got a lot of work to do today, and we have to start early because I also have to paint the living room.” He took an impatient gulp of his coffee while he waited for Sullivan to stop laughing. “Come on, Sharon said you found out something exciting.”

Sullivan sobered. “You've landed yourself quite a woman this time. Just don't fuck it up.” He let the silence lengthen as long as he dared then returned to safer ground. “Okay. First, Ident's been working their butts off on this non-case. I tell you, after this is over, you'll have to buy Lou Paquette a bottle. He lifted dozens of prints off the key surfaces of the Walker house—the certificates, the booze, drawer knobs, that kind of thing—and he spent all of his Saturday night going through them. So far, most of them seem to be Mr. or Mrs.”

“Most?”

“He lifted some off the certificates and the booze in the basement that don't match the Walkers.”

“Tell him to print Donald and Margaret Reid.”

Sullivan glowered briefly over his coffee cup. “I'm ahead of you. He's going over to the Reids' today.”

“Well, we might get lucky. What about the tire tracks? I suppose we wrecked them all.”

“Nope. They have some great imprints of my tires, but at the bend in the road we didn't swing quite as wide, and so the tracks are separate. The RCMP will work on the tire make first thing tomorrow. Lou would like to see some paperwork, though, so he can put in for the overtime.”

Green grinned. “He'll get it, once Jules knows we're investigating the case.”

Sullivan took a deep swig of coffee and shook his head wearily. “I don't know how you get away with it. Jules is going to have our heads over this.”

“Don't worry. I'll take care of Jules. You just keep working. What about Gibbs and the immigration records? Walker's and Josef what's-his-name's?”

Here Sullivan came alive. Triumphantly he pulled out his notebook and flipped it open. “There, old buddy, we finally hit pay dirt. According to their immigration applications, both Walker and Mr. G. came from the same town in Poland. Ozorkow.”

“But Walker doesn't even remember where he's from.”

Sullivan shrugged. “That's what he wrote down on his application. Ozorkow.”

*    *    *

Superintendent Adam Jules, head of Criminal Investigations, had turned a delicate hue of pink and the nostrils of his fine aquiline nose flared. It was the only outward manifestation of his outrage. That and the thin, tight line of his lips. Green had called on him at home, which had not improved his mood.

Jules placed his fingertips together on his lap and studied them. “Michael, Dr. MacPhail's report lists the death as natural causes. Eighty years old, enough disease to sink an elephant, and according to the blood work-up, nearly twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system. By all means harass grieving widows, tie up the OPP, build up our overtime bill in Forensics.”

Green grinned. Nothing got past Jules. “Adam, just because he could have died of natural causes doesn't mean he did.”

“Do you have one shred of evidence to point to homicide?”

“Yes sir.”

“What?”

“A small depression wound on Walker's temple which couldn't have been made as he fell, because nothing in the vicinity matches the shape.”

Jules' eyebrows rose, and the thin line of his lips grew thinner still. “This is evidence?”

“It's a shred. That's all you asked for.”

Jules studied him in silence for a minute with no hint of expression in the perfectly groomed exterior to betray his thoughts. His grey eyes seemed emotionless, but Green sensed that he was weakening. Jules sighed.

“Do you have a theory?”

Green relaxed. “Some possible ones, all of which suggest premeditation. But I'm going to need to assign some men to the case.”

“And given MacPhail's report and the family's complaints, I'm going to need something to justify it, Michael. Shea and our public image, you know.” Jules rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly as he mentioned the new Police Chief.

“Do you need it in writing or will a verbal report do?”

Jules gave his approximation of a smile, for Green's aversion to paper was legendary. “In writing when you can. Until then, a verbal report will have to do.”

It took Green fifteen minutes to brief Jules on the investigation to date and the leads he was following. Jules listened in silence as the list of procedural irregularities mounted, but when Green mentioned going to Hamilton, he stiffened.

“What's in Hamilton?”

“The mysterious assault victim. Walker was arguing with someone in a foreign language just before he died, and there may be a tie-in.”

“Why not get the Hamilton police to do it?”

“Because it's an intricate matter, possibly involving events that took place over fifty years ago. Only Sergeant Sullivan and I know the context.”

“Then send Sullivan. I'll authorize that.”

“But Adam—” Green raised his eyes in silent hope, but the grey eyes that met his were unmoved.

“You're an inspector, Michael, not a field man. End of discussion.”

Green left Jules' apartment with mixed feelings. Disappointed and frustrated that Jules would not let him follow the Hamilton lead personally, but pleased that he had secured Jules' cooperation to continue pursuing the case, however tenuous the evidence was. For there were many questions and no clear-cut idea as to whether any of them were important.

Kressman, Gryszkiewicz and Walker all seemed to come from Ozorkow. Surely that was too great a coincidence not to be relevant. Sullivan would check out Gryszkiewicz in Hamilton tomorrow. That left Green with Kressman, the simple Jewish blacksmith who had never returned from the war. How the hell could Green find out about him, especially on a Sunday morning when all official agencies would be locked up tight?

Fifteen years earlier, the Federal Justice Department's War Crimes unit had begun its quest to prosecute Nazi war criminals with zeal and optimism but had since become mired in bureaucratic and judicial red tape. All of the original team had been replaced, but Green remembered one fiery former prosecutor whose very passion had been his undoing. David Haley had felt the pain of every one of the frail old witnesses he'd tracked down, and the accumulated frustrations and roadblocks had nearly destroyed his health. Green knew that he had left war crimes several years earlier for the more mundane halls of civil law, but he hoped Haley's interest in war crimes was still keen. Maybe keen enough to accept a call to duty no matter the day.