Once Upon a Time (24 page)

“Please, that's—”

But she was unstoppable, for which Green silently celebrated his luck. A good three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, she ran her husband with a practised hand. “He visited half a dozen times, spooky as a cat at midnight, asked a thousand questions about our neighbours, one time he even put black-out curtains on all our windows. Black-out curtains, for God's sake! In the middle of Renfrew County, thirty years after the war! He's more than a few bricks short of a load, I can tell you, and there's no way I'm having anything on my conscience.”

Green's suspicions stirred. “When did this black-out incident occur?”

“The last time he was here, after that fellow beat him up. We brought him home from Renfrew Victoria Hospital so he could rest up a few days before making the trip home.”

“It was that bang on the head, Jeanie,” Dubroskie interjected wearily, as if they'd had this argument many times. “The doctors said it made him confused.”

“Yeah,” she retorted, still at full tilt. “So confused he started spouting German and insisted his name was Jozef Fritsch, which really gave me the willies—”

“Jeanie—”

“I mean, I lost my father at Dieppe, and when I thought there might be one right under my roof—”

“Fritsch was his mother's maiden name, that's all,” Dubroskie amended, but there was little fight in his voice.

“Anyway, that's when I sent him packing. And I said to Karl, Karl, I don't want that man in my kitchen ever again, and I don't think you want to be having anything to do with him either. So Karl, don't tell me you called him Saturday and tipped him off that the cops were looking for him.”

Green turned his attention to her husband, who looked wretched.

“No dear, I didn't call him. I wasn't going to fight his battles for him, and if he got himself into trouble, I was going to let the chips fall where they may.”

Green looked at him thoughtfully, at the way he barely met his wife's eye, and wondered whether that was the truth. Or just what his wife wanted to hear.

*    *    *

As Green negotiated the bumper-to-bumper traffic back down Highway 17 towards Ottawa, he listened to Sullivan's end of the conversation on the cellphone and tried to piece together the news from Hamilton. It didn't sound good. When Sullivan disconnected, he confirmed Green's fears.

“Still no sign of him. He's not gone to any of his old haunts, or checked with any of his old pals.”

“He's gone to ground,” Green replied grimly. “Let's just hope he's skipped the country without leaving any bullet-riddled bodies behind.”

Sullivan stared out the window a moment at the flat, monotonous snow fields. “You know, you could be wrong. He could just be a scared old man like his daughter said, still spooked from his persecution and escape from the Soviets, distrustful of police and afraid we'll frame him for something he didn't do. So he grabs a gun and takes off. God knows where he'll end up when he stops running.”

Green listened impatiently. “What about Walker's murder?”

“Let's face it, Mike, we don't have much evidence to prove Walker was even murdered.”

“We don't have much evidence, but we know he was.”

“What do we have that we can possibly substantiate in court? A bump on the head that we can't explain? MacPhail will get up on the stand and say the guy died of natural causes. A doctor hurrying past hears a mumble of voices from Walker's car, but he can't even say for sure there was more than one person in the vehicle. A defence lawyer would make mincemeat of him.”

Green forced himself to consider the points; much as he hated to admit it, this was how Sullivan and he worked best. Sullivan provided the sober second thought that kept Green's feet on the ground.

“We've got the dark grey car at the country house and the footprints someone tried to wipe out,” he muttered finally.

“What's that got to do with anything? That was Don Reid's car. And if we're looking for a believable murder suspect, there's one I could sell to the Crown. It was his vehicle, his prints on the investment bonds. Two thousand bucks' worth are missing, and Don Reid's finances are the pits. According to Watts' latest report, Reid's house is second-mortgaged to the limit, he owes fifteen grand on his little BMW toy, his credit cards are cancelled and his chequing account is two thousand dollars overdrawn. He's even borrowed from friends. This guy goes through money like water. He must have a hole in him somewhere.”

“It's cocaine,” Green interjected.

Sullivan absorbed this with a look of surprise. “Nice of you to tell me, buddy. Cocaine. That's perfect. We all know what cocaine does—makes you nuts, you can't think straight, can't control your temper. You get desperate for the next hit. Reid could have stolen the bonds from old man Walker and gotten into a fight with him over it in the car that day. Reid's wife doesn't know about their money problems, and maybe he didn't want her finding out. The old man threatens to blow the whistle, things get out of hand and Reid hits him. The day after the death, he sneaks out to the house and checks it out to make sure there's nothing around that might incriminate him.”

Green had been listening intently for flaws in the logic, and now he shook his head. “It was Howard Walker who sneaked into the house.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Neither Don nor Margaret drove out there that day. They both invented stories, but they didn't know the time nor the duration of the visit. I could tell Don didn't even know the trip had taken place. Margaret did, and she was covering for someone. Howard Walker claims he didn't even know his father was dead until Thursday evening, but the phone records from the hotel show that he made a long-distance call from Toronto to Margaret at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. After the murder but before the trip to the country house. He learned of his father's death, swore his sister to secrecy, borrowed her car, and went out to the house. Probably to get something.”

“What?”

“I haven't a clue. Yet.”

“You think Howard bumped off his father?” Sullivan asked with disbelief. “Left the convention Wednesday, bumped him off, returned to Toronto, called his sister, and then the next day drove all the way back to get something out of the country house?”

Green made a face. “No, I don't. Howard despised his father, and he never wanted to see him again, but I don't see him as the murdering type. No matter what you say, I still think the paranoid Mr. G. is the one we're looking for.”

Back at the station an hour later, however, he made a startling discovery which cast Howard's actions in an whole new light. Sullivan had gone home, and Green was doing a quick review of the accumulated reports before he too went home, hoping for some small fact they could link to Gryszkiewicz. The first reports revealed little new. Forensics reported no fingerprints other than the Walkers' and Don Reid's anywhere outside or inside the Dodge Aries. Bank records confirmed that Don Reid had withdrawn money Wednesday afternoon, but at 1:30, not noon as he'd claimed. But then, coke addicts spent their lives fudging the truth.

Just when Green was beginning to fear the case might never break open, he came across two phone messages near the bottom of the pile. One was a brief memo from Detective Gibbs reporting on his visits to antique dealers in Toronto. The other was a phone message from Naomi Wyman. He was so astounded that he nearly shouted aloud.

Usually keep inquiries strictly confidential but since possible war crime involved, thought should tell you two weeks ago a Howard Walker came in requesting info on survivors Ozorkow.

Twelve

September 1st, 1942

My hands bleed, my arms scream mercy.

Still my liebling digs. Half mad.

It must be big enough for them to breathe.

The walls thick enough to hide their cries.

She clambers in and shakes her head.

Footfalls on the stair, she dives out and shoves the cupboard

back in place.

No one must know, she hisses. No one.

But we'll need someone to care for them while we work.

No one, she says.

Traitors and madmen are everywhere.

What price a Jewish child these days?

A bowl of soup?

A chance to live another day?

The Darkness has stolen our souls,
but not these children.

Not if it takes a thousand days in this cave until
      the British come.

The drive to Montreal
took less than two hours along the nearly deserted four-lane Trans-Canada highway, and Green arrived at the western outskirts of the city around supper time, happy to see the rush hour traffic heading in the opposite direction for once. Sharon had been working today and he had left her a cryptic message on the answering machine to the effect he'd be home sometime but perhaps not until ten. She'd be annoyed. No, that was an understatement. Tony's birthday party was tomorrow, and Green was supposed to be home tonight to help her get ready. Since he was missing two family dinners in a row, she'd be plotting his demise.

As he drove, Green tried to integrate the new information with what he already knew, but this new revelation about Howard threw a completely different twist into his theories to date. At least Gibbs' report from the Toronto antique dealer confirmed much of what Fine had already said; the tool box had been handmade by a fine craftsman, almost certainly Joseph Kressman himself, who had made the false bottom to conceal something precious. Probably secret papers or jewels, a common enough subterfuge during wartime. The keys had been mass-produced by a German company which went bankrupt after the war, and they may have been used by the military for storage depots, gates and barracks.

Or concentration camps, he thought with a chill. What would Eugene Walker, Jewish camp inmate, be doing with such a key? And what the hell did Howard know about any of this?

Twenty minutes later, Howard Walker stood in the doorway of his modest brick house, his eyes widened in astonishment at the sight of Green.

“What are you doing here?”

“Following unanswered questions,” Green replied, and when Howard continued to gape, he inclined his head politely. “May I come in?”

“Is this legal? Aren't you out of your jurisdiction or something?”

“It's done all the time,” Green replied patiently. “Have you got a problem with talking to me?”

“Not at all, not at all.” Flustered, Howard drew back into the house and gestured for Green to follow. He led him through a vestibule crammed with shoes and coats into a long, narrow living room.

Howard Walker's home created a curious feeling of contradiction. It was a two-storey brick semi tucked into a narrow lot in Lower Westmount, a house much like the one in which Green had grown up in the slums of Ottawa's Lowertown. Also like his, this one was sparsely furnished in aging hand-me-downs, and home-made bookshelves lined the walls. But the similarity ended there. Green knew this modest little home had probably cost the new doctor and his wife three hundred thousand dollars, and represented Howard's first step up the ladder of yuppiedom. Furniture would come later, when his lucrative specialty of neurology began to pay dividends.

As Green entered the living room, he wondered how a penniless shopkeeper's son from Renfrew who had just completed his residency had managed to scrape together three hundred thousand for a house in the gentrified downtown, when he and Sharon could scarcely afford a vinyl cube at the End of the Earth. But in the next instant he had his answer. Curled up in an overstuffed chair in the corner of the living room, her feet tucked under the generous folds of her designer skirt, was Rachel, the picture of Daddy's Girl. The astonishment in her amber eyes mirrored that of her husband.

“I don't understand why you keep on about my father's death,” Howard said as he sat down. “My father was not a well man. Since I've studied medicine, I'm amazed that he didn't collapse sooner.”

During the drive, Green had planned his approach carefully. Howard's visit to Naomi Wyman raised a number of serious questions, but they would have to be sequenced carefully lest he send Howard running for cover. A blend of bullying and coddling was in order.

“Dr. Walker, I want to know why you went out to your parents' house last Thursday,” he began bluntly.

Rachel uncurled herself in annoyance. “Last Thursday Howard was in Toronto at the medical convention. We've been through this.”

“No, he wasn't.” Green kept his eyes fixed on her husband. “He wanted everyone to believe that, but actually he flew up to Ottawa, borrowed his sister's car, and drove out to the country house.”

“That's ridiculous,” Rachel said. “He didn't even know Eugene was dead then.”

“His sister told him when he called her Wednesday night.” Green pulled a folded invoice from his pocket and turned to Howard. “There's a record of that phone call on your hotel bill.”

“Howard!” Rachel cried. “What is this?”

Howard was looking at him in mute horror. “My God. You think I killed him.”

“You tell me,” Green countered. “What conclusion should I draw from all the lies and subterfuge?”

“That's outrageous, Inspector! Howard couldn't kill anyone, least of all his own father.”

“There was no love lost—”

“There was a great deal of love lost!” she shot back. “That was the tragedy.”

“Rachel, please.” Howard's weary voice caught them both by surprise. He reached for a loose thread on the sofa arm and twisted it in his long, fluid fingers. “I did call Margaret, and I did leave the convention to go out to the house. I had to retrieve something.”

“What?” Green demanded.