Once Upon a Time (30 page)

Green looked at the gaunt spectre before him and remembered the man he'd known in childhood as Irving's father. A taciturn, unyielding man who sat on his front balcony buried in his newspaper and trading insults in Yiddish with the old woman across the way. A man who shouted at the boys for running over his tiny lawn and who turned off all his lights on Halloween. A man in whom joy had been eclipsed for so long that when the rage was expunged, he felt…nothing.

Green pushed himself to his feet. “Bernie, I promised you no jails or hospitals. But come back to my father's place with me, where you can be warm and taken care of till the end. You can't stay here.”

Mendelsohn remained where he was. He was tiring rapidly, and he leaned his head back against the tombstone and shut his eyes. “This is where I belong. Where I want to be.”

It took all Green's strength to walk away, not because he was turning a blind eye to murder, but because he was leaving a man to die. As soon as he reached his car, he pulled out his notebook, checked a number, and punched it into his cell phone.

“Irving,” he snapped, abandoning all pretense at professional protocol, “Mike Green again. Your father is sitting in the cemetery by your mother's grave waiting to die. If you're any kind of a son—”

“Green!” Irving roared, and his tone stopped Green short. It was brusque but bewildered, like an unaccustomed call for help. “I got a strange package from Ottawa in the mail today. An old ratty notebook, all scribbled in Yiddish. Looks like a bunch of poems. Did you send it?”

“No,” Green replied in surprise. “It must be your father's.”

Mendelsohn sighed. “Isn't that typical. No hello, son. No how's my grandson. No explanation.”

“He obviously thought it speaks for itself.”

“Well, I guess I'll have to get it translated, then.”

Green thought of Walker and the grimy toolbox he had hung onto for sixty years. “It's probably the most important thing he owns.” He had heard the perplexity beneath the nonchalance in Mendelsohn's voice and was reluctant to help the man understand, when he'd done nothing to earn it. Yet there had already been too much left unsaid. “Maybe his way of explaining.”

“Explaining what?”

“Why don't you get your ass on a plane up here and ask him.”

*    *    *

Green felt marginally better as he put the car in gear and headed towards home. A balance had been struck after all. Perhaps the only one possible. He knew his decision to walk away from the graveyard might generate some complications once Gryszkiewicz' body was eventually found. He didn't know what forensic or eyewitness evidence the Hamilton police would unearth nor how clearly that evidence would point to Mendelsohn, but their investigation would surely lead back to Ottawa. Several people knew Green considered the two cases linked, but they had only bits of the picture. Howard knew Green suspected Mendelsohn of killing Walker, but didn't know Green had found Mendelsohn in the graveyard. Irving knew Green had found Bernie, but didn't know he suspected him of murder.

The only person with the whole picture was himself, and no one was going to question his call on the case. Mendelsohn was a feeble old man who barely had the strength to raise his cane, let alone kill a man. Never mind that the rage of half a century had probably given Mendelsohn the strength to kill an elephant. Let MacPhail's verdict stand: death by natural causes. God knows Walker's family would be happy enough, Gryszkiewicz' family would be happy enough to leave the past buried, and Mendelsohn would be dead within hours. The crimes, past and present, would remain undetected, and yet in the final reckoning, justice of a sort would have been done.

As for Gryszkiewicz's murder, let the Hamilton police make whatever case they could, without, Green suspected, much cooperation or disclosure from the dead man's family. No one knows about Bernie's confession but me, he thought. The old man is dying, and this is how he wants to die. After all he's endured, that simple wish should not be too much to ask.

With an effort, Green tried to put the image of the dying man aside and turn his mind to the next crisis of the day. He glanced at his watch. Three-thirty. If he broke all the speed limits, he could be right on time for the party. Maybe even on time to help Sharon prepare the house and blow up some balloons. Just what he needed—fun, family and the chance to keep dark thoughts at bay.

He dialled home and a rushed, frazzled Sharon answered. He spoke quickly before she could unleash a diatribe. “Hi, sweetheart. I'm half way home now, on my way to buy wine and bagels.”

“Have you bought Tony's present?”

He bit back a curse of dismay. “Just picking it up,” he replied and glanced out the window to get his bearings. Nothing but car dealers and fast food outlets, and up ahead the sign for the airport parkway, which in the other direction led downtown. What the hell could he get at the boutiques and novelty shops downtown? Suddenly brilliance struck.

“What did you get?” she demanded.

“It's a secret,” he said and steered the car up onto the ramp.

*    *    *

Six hours later, the last straggling guest had left, and the centre of the party had long since been put to bed, cranky and exhausted from a surfeit of cake, noisy laughter and mauling hands. When Green arrived back from driving his father home, the stuffed toys, books and trucks had been piled in the corner of the living room, and Sharon was slumping around picking up paper plates and wrapping paper from the floor.

Her eyes were at half mast, but they mustered a little sparkle when he took her into his arms and kissed her.

“It was a great party, darling. And all your doing too. I'm sorry.”

“You should be, and believe me, I'll collect. But it worked out. Our very first party as homeowners.”

“Yeah.” He glanced around the living room which, despite its fresh new blue paint, was featureless. His antipathy must have shown, for her enthusiasm faded and she leaned into his arms with a sigh.

“You hate it here, don't you?”

He opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped himself. “Yes.”

“They're not really your kind of people, are they?”

“Do my kind of people even exist?” he asked. He'd kept himself sober so that he could drive his father home, but now he longed for a brandy to stave off the disquiet that was stealing back in. Outside, the chill of night had settled in, and he thought of Bernie. Sullivan hadn't called, which meant neither old man had been discovered. Green prayed Irving had heeded his call in time.

Sharon seemed to read his mind, because she disengaged herself and went to pour them both a small snifter of Remy Martin. “Here's to our little boy. One year old and showing every sign of being a miniature you.”

The cognac spread its warmth through him and he smiled. “What a curse.”

“You never did give him his present. Did you even get it?”

He feigned insult and went into the front cupboard, returning with a square box elegantly wrapped in silver paper. “I waited till after the guests left, because it's kind of private.”

“But now Tony's asleep,” she protested. “Shouldn't we wait till morning?”

“We'll put it by his bed. It's not a gift he'll appreciate right away anyway.”

She cast him a puzzled look and reached to grab the box, but he held it out of her reach. He led her upstairs to Tony's room, where he opened the box and unrolled its contents from the tissue paper. Carefully he stood the antique candlesticks on the dresser and stepped back to let her admire them.

“There are six million stories to go with these. One day, maybe I'll tell him a few.”

She slipped her arms around his waist. “Green, sometimes out of the blue, just when I'm about to lose hope, you get it just right.”

Barbara Fradkin
was born in Montreal and attended McGill, the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa, where she obtained her PhD in psychology. Her past work as a child psychologist has provided ample inspiration and insight for plotting fictional murders.

Her dark amd compelling short stories haunt several anthologies and magazines, such as
Storyteller
,
Iced
(Insomniac Press, 2001), and the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, including
Fit to Die
(RendezVous Press, 2001).

The first Inspector Green Mystery,
Do or Die
, was published in 2000.
Once Upon a Time
is inspired by her husband's work as a war crimes prosecutor.

An active member of Canada's crime writing community, Barbara is currently on the executive of Capital Crime Writers as well as the Ottawa Chapters of Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers of Canada. She resides in Ottawa with assorted pets and children, and in her spare time she enjoys outdoor activities and travelling.

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The first
Inspector
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Inspector Michael Green is absolutely obsessed with his job, a condition which has almost ruined his marriage several times. When the biggest case of his career comes up, his position, his relationships and several lives are put into grave danger. A graduate student is found expertly stabbed in the stacks of a university library. But as Green probes into the circumstances of the young man's life, a tangled web of academic jealousy and ethnic intrigue is revealed. When the murderer strikes again, Green realizes that he must waste no time in solving the case, no matter what the consequences may be.

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