Once Upon a Time (21 page)

“So that's what I got, Mike. Hamilton Police has been notified, over the old lady's protests, and they'll put some men on it right away. His age is a worry, after all.”

“So's the gun,” Green countered bluntly. His mind was racing ahead. He didn't like the implications. The alleged phone call and Gryszkiewicz's disappearance had occurred on Saturday, which was three days after Walker's death, although as Sullivan had pointed out, it was the day the two of them had been nosing around Renfrew asking about the past. The phone call had probably been a tip-off, which had led Gryszkiewicz to go to ground. The gun may have been simply for protection, but why the tipoff, and why the disappearance?

“And I know it could be just a slip-up,” Sullivan was saying, “but the old lady was definitely hiding something. I hadn't told her Walker was from Ozorkow until I asked about the fight, but she was very quick to deny they could have known each other. It's not much, maybe, but it's a little clue that she knew exactly who Walker was, and that her husband and she had talked about it.”

Understanding dawned on Green like a slow spreading of light. It was more than a little clue, far more than Sullivan could even imagine. A theory was taking shape in his mind…of Walker, one of the educated, privileged elite. Of Gryszkiewicz, a young man raised in poverty, fatherless and alienated from the reins of power. A young man blacklisted for political reasons almost immediately after the Soviet liberation of Poland from the Nazis. A young man who had escaped to the West through an international underground network of friends.

Not just any friends, Green thought, but a secret, tightly-organized, well-connected international network of ideological sympathizers, with a base in South America and money to spare.

The skull and crossbones, gone underground.

The theory explained why Walker had attacked him thirty-five years later in a bar half way around the world. It explained why Gryszkiewicz had pretended not to know him and refused to press charges. It explained why, three days after Walker's death, Gryszkiewicz had dropped out of sight.

And most of all, in the death of Eugene Walker, the theory provided a murderer and a motive.

*    *    *

When Green arrived home, the lower floor of the Dreaded Vinyl Cube was in darkness, but a light still shone in the master bedroom upstairs. He slipped in, took off his snowy boots and tiptoed upstairs. Sharon sat propped up in bed with a book, looking delectably pink and tousled. Her expression, however, was anything but amorous.

“Strange hours the Billings Bridge Mall keeps these days,” she said.

“I sent Brian Sullivan to Hamilton today, and I had to get a briefing from him.”

In spite of herself, her chocolate eyes brightened. “On the concentration camp case?”

“I think I've figured out what happened.” He summarized Sullivan's report as he undressed. She cocked her head, and he could see her intelligent mind probing the implications.

“Okay, so now you know a lot about this Mr. G.'s past, but I don't see what it tells you about Walker.”

“Well, he knew Walker in Ozorkow—the wife let that slip. She also implied that they didn't move in the same circles. That Walker was rich and her husband was poor, and he hated Walker's kind.”

“Walker's kind?” She frowned in bafflement.

“I can think of one major reason why Eugene Walker would have attacked Mr. G. half a century later, but the problem is, after all the years of cover-ups, I don't know how to find out if it's true.” He reached for his long underwear. “How do you distinguish a Pole from a Jew?”

She stared at him a moment in bewildered silence before her face lit with a wicked grin. “Check the autopsy report.”

*    *    *

At eight o'clock the next morning, Green was scrolling through the reports on the Walker case. No autopsy report, which was hardly surprising since sometimes MacPhail's paperwork took days. But when Green phoned up the pathology department at the General Hospital, MacPhail was uncharacteristically brusque.

“Ah, that bloody Walker case,” he grumbled. “Well, it's a natural causes, laddie, so I won't be sending the autopsy report over.”

“MacPhail, I'm investigating the case. I have to see the report.”

“I've told you my findings. That's all you need to know.”

Green was puzzled. MacPhail and he had known each other for years, and were long since past the stage of formalities. “MacPhail, what the hell's going on?”

“I'm not getting in the middle of this, laddie. My conclusion is death by hypothermia, end of story. Your boss has already reamed me out for saying more than I should.”

To Howard Walker, Green remembered. Probably after he's had a quart or two too many, which would be why Jules reamed him out. “Jules spoke to you about the case? When?”

“Saturday.” There was a pause, then MacPhail's voice grew firmer. “Look, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know what's going on, and I don't want to know. If the family says they want to protect the man's privacy and Jules says there's no reason not to respect that, I'm going to be keeping my head down.”

What the hell is he talking about, Green wondered and felt his pulse quicken with suspicion. Someone in the Walker family had asked that the autopsy report not be released. They had obviously complained to the brass—probably about Green's intrusive questioning—and Jules, not knowing on Saturday that Green suspected a homicide, had agreed with them. Which did not say much about Jules' trust in him.

“Well, things have changed,” he said briskly. “And Jules is aware of it. I'm not disputing the cause of death. I just want further details on the condition of the body. Can you fax the report over ASAP?”

He stationed himself by the fax machine and waited impatiently for it to hum into action. The squad room was slowly emptying as most detectives headed off to the morning's briefing with the Staff Sergeant, but Green signalled Sullivan to remain behind. As soon as the fax machine had finished spitting the report out, Green seized it and scanned the contents. At the bottom of the first page, he found the physical description of the body, cataloguing all visible marks and scars. Most of MacPhail's attention was directed to the fresh wound on his temple, with brief reference near the end to a half dozen old scars on the forearm. Barbed wire tears, Ruth Walker had said, but more likely desperate attempts to remove the tattooed numbers from his arm.

On the next page he found what he was looking for. “Aha!” he cried to Sullivan. “I'm right! Why the hell didn't MacPhail mention this to us?”

He handed Sullivan the fax and pointed to the second page. As Sullivan read it over, Green could almost see his mind wrestling with the implications. After a moment, Sullivan looked up.

“But that doesn't mean—”

Green nodded triumphantly. “In pre-war rural Poland, that's exactly what it means.”

“Okay, so what's our next move?”

“First we check and double check with MacPhail that this is accurate. That he didn't dictate it by mistake, because it's such a routine comment. Sometimes I think the guy's totally pickled when he does his carving.”

“MacPhail?” Sullivan chuckled. “He drinks like a fish, but he can drink the whole force under the table and still get up at six a.m. to jog. I don't know where the guy puts it.”

“True, but before I set off to harass the widow yet again, I want to be damn sure I've got my facts straight, because this gives us a motive and a killer.”

MacPhail's mood had not improved in the twenty minutes since his last conversation with Green. His voice reverberated through the wires so loudly that Green pulled the receiver away from his ear.

“Every goddamn word in that report is accurate, and if you want, lad, I'll dig the old bugger up so you can all have a look at it.”

*    *    *

I should phone to give the grieving widow some time to collect herself, Green thought to himself as he headed out once again to the Reid house. Or I could conduct the whole interview by phone, as most normal detectives would. But the subtleties—the averting of the eyes, the paling of the cheek— these were lost over the telephone, and with a reluctant witness like Ruth Walker, that was half the interview.

Ruth Walker herself opened the door, and a delicate scowl spread over her face at the sight of him. She was dressed in baggy wool clothes wrapped high around her neck to ward off the cold, and her hair frizzed in a grey mist about her head.

“Is this really necessary? I'm just getting ready to go back to the country. Howard and Rachel have already returned to Montreal, and I think Don and Margaret need some time for each other.”

An astute woman, he thought yet again, a woman attuned to the hidden secrets and unspoken needs of everyone around her. How much had she known, or guessed, but left unsaid? “I won't keep you long,” he said mildly. “Just some questions about Eugene's habits. General background.”

Her eyes darkened briefly before she waved him in. “Very well. I'll brew some tea.”

On the drive over, Green had wondered how he would secure the information he needed without revealing his suspicions prematurely. If he were wrong, he would upset the family unnecessarily—especially Ruth, whom he considered the one truly innocent and selfless person in this saga. As she prepared their tea, he came up with an idea. He noticed that she served her tea British-style, milk first and then lumps of sugar added to the tea. He held up his hand as she moved to prepare his the same way.

“Actually, I prefer it with lemon, if you have any.”

She nodded without surprise and went to fetch him some.

“I suppose you're used to that,” he commented amiably, “since Eugene was Polish.”

“Yes, he preferred it with lemon.”

“My father's from Poland too, and he drinks it in a glass through a cube of sugar in his teeth.”

In spite of herself, her eyes crinkled with amusement. “I caught Eugene drinking it that way a couple of times when he was alone. He always acted quite embarrassed.”

“Was he ashamed of his old-world habits?”

She tilted her head. “I think he was. He very much wanted to be a Canadian, to put all that part of his life behind him. He even hated his accent.”

“Is that why he never spoke Polish?”

“Partly, although of course I never asked him.”

“But Renfrew County has a very mixed ethnic make-up, and many people still have a strong sense of their heritage. How did he feel about living among people of Polish and German descent? They must have been constant reminders of his past.”

She stirred her tea carefully as she weighed her response, and the teaspoon clinked delicately against the bone china. “I think he had very mixed feelings. I think their presence was soothing and familiar, but they also made him uncomfortable.”

“Why did he choose to go out there? Canada's a big place. Why not move someplace where there would be no memories to combat?”

“I chose Renfrew, Inspector. I had a friend who had married a Canadian Air Force chap during the war, and she was moving to Peterborough. Renfrew wasn't far, it was a small town and I felt that was all Eugene could handle. I wanted country, peace and wide-open spaces. Eugene still got panicky in crowds and among strangers.”

“Yet he never associated with the Polish community.”

“He never associated with anyone, Inspector.”

Carefully, he took his next step. “I gather it's really important to fit into a group out there, especially fifty years ago, and social activities often revolved around the church one belonged to. What religion did you choose?”

She flushed a little as she busied herself wiping invisible crumbs from the table. “I can't see the relevance of that. Religion was not part of our lives. Both Eugene and I felt quite strongly after what we'd seen in the war that, if there was a God, we wanted no part of him.”

“So you attended no church?”

She laid the napkin down, folded her hands in her lap and frowned at him. “What are you getting at, Inspector?”

“Trying to get a picture of his habits and preferences. It might tell us where he's from.”

Her frown deepened. “I told you, it doesn't matter where he's from.”

“But you have your theories.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a wild guess. It would explain her fear and reluctance to unearth the past. “Deep down, you're afraid he might have been a Nazi.”

Her hands tightened convulsively, and she dropped her eyes, but didn't speak.

“Rest easy, Mrs. Walker. Your husband wasn't a Nazi.”

For a moment she sat immobile, barely breathing. “What do you know?”

“Not much yet. It's what you know that will tell us for sure.”

She was beginning to breathe again. After a moment, she leaned forward and picked up her tea, as if she had made a decision. “I was never sure, but I was afraid he might be. The uniform, the stolen ID…and he spoke German, you see.”

“What was his German like?”

“Quite fluent. He rarely spoke it, just as he rarely spoke Polish, but he understood it perfectly. And in English he often mixed up his grammar backwards the way Germans do. You know: ‘To the shop you are going?' And sometimes…” She hesitated. “When he was drunk, he'd say things in German, like ‘
Gott in Himmel, Liebling
'. It was like a cold fist closing on my heart.”

The pieces all fit. The more she talked, the more certain he became. He leaned forward. “What about his religious habits? Subconscious little things. Poles are Catholics. You're Protestant, so were many Nazis. Did you notice any differences between your ways and his?”

She frowned in thought. “He had a lot of odd superstitions. He knew they were silly and he'd chastise himself when he caught himself—”