Once Upon a Time (5 page)

“But someone might have helped him.”

“Why! What could anyone have to gain?”

“Precisely my question, Mr. Reid.”

A shocked silence descended on the family as Don Reid eyed Green, speechless. After a minute, he snorted in derision. “That's ridiculous. Eugene was a recluse, he never saw anyone. He had no friends any more, and he wasn't involved in any activities where he could have made enemies. Right, Ruth?”

Ruth Walker was staring at Green in dismay, and he felt a twinge of pity. He didn't like putting her through this.

“What makes you think he was murdered?”

“I have to investigate all angles, Mrs. Walker.”

His evasion deepened her confusion. “Then you're not saying he was or wasn't?”

“I can't.”

His bluntness brought colour to her cheeks, and when she saw he was still awaiting an answer, she cast about in bewilderment. “I really can't think what anyone had to gain. Eugene saw no one but the family. He's been retired fifteen years, and even before that he kept to himself.”

“Who knew you were going to the hospital that day?”

“No one, except Margaret and Don, of course. But no one would have known he was in the car. Unless…unless it was a stranger—I mean, a robbery, or…”

“It's possible, but for the sake of my paperwork, I'd like to explore some background. First of all, what did your husband do before he retired?”

“We owned a hardware shop in Renfrew. It was a small family business, and it gave us a comfortable living, but nothing more. We sold it when Eugene got too…” She hesitated. “Too tired to handle it. We made enough money from the sale to buy a house in the country. He wasn't especially fond of crowds.”

“Did he speak any foreign languages, or know someone who did?”

“Well, he was—” Don began, but Ruth held up her hand. Sharply, Green thought.

But her voice was sweet. “Why on earth do you ask that, Inspector?”

“Because he was overheard speaking to someone in the car before he died.”

Ruth grew very still. “Someone foreign?”

“Possibly.”

“I have no idea—” she faltered. “No one knew he was in town.”

“Ruth,” Don burst in, “you don't know the half of what Eugene does. There are lots of Poles and Germans out in the Renfrew area where you live.”

“But they're all third or fourth generation Canadians.”

“Some of the old-timers still speak their language. And what about that guy who—”

“There must be some mistake.” Ruth rose, brisk with purpose. “Goodness, look at the time! Howard and Rachel's plane will be in soon.”

Green glanced at Don, who shrugged his apology. Don knows something, Green thought, but now is not the time to pursue it. “Who are Howard and Rachel?” he asked instead.

Ruth sat down with visible relief. “My son and his wife. They live in Montreal—Howard's just finished his residency at the Montreal Neurological Institute—but he's been in Toronto at a conference, and Margaret only managed to reach them today.”

Green looked at the daughter, who had been staring out the window as if in a trance. She jerked her head around at the mention of her name, and Green saw her flinch. Something is definitely off-kilter in this family, he thought.

“Just to help me get the whole picture,” he said affably, “I'd like some background on the family. Howard's married—any children?”

Ruth answered for the lot of them. Howard and Rachel had no children yet, but Don and Margaret had been married twenty years and had two sons. Don was in business, although she was vague on the details.

Don was sitting in the corner, jiggling his legs restlessly. “I work for a management consulting firm,” he interjected brusquely. “Although I don't see what relevance it has.”

“Probably none,” Green said cheerfully. “Just getting the whole picture. Margaret, do you work outside the home?”

Margaret's eyes were fixed on her husband, and for a moment she merely nodded before finding her voice. “Part time. I'm a nurse at the Civic—casual relief. I'm trying to upgrade myself.”

“Try psychiatry. It's a nice, cushy job.”

He had meant it as a joke; his four years with Sharon had taught him how mistaken that stereotype was. Psychiatric nursing was intense, emotionally draining work. But Margaret was clearly not up to jokes.

“I wouldn't have the patience,” she replied. “Or the emotional stamina.”

Green studied her for moment. She was pale, and a shredded Kleenex was wrapped around her quivering fingers. He wondered whether it was simply grief, or something more. She seemed frightened, and Green sensed she was withholding something too. But with her husband and mother standing guard, it would be futile to press her. He jotted the thought down for future use and turned back to the widow.

“Did Mr. Walker have a will?”

He threw the question out quickly, hoping to catch someone off guard, but Ruth did not miss a beat. A woman used to surprises, he wondered? Or used to covering up?

“Yes, he did. It's back at the country house. Once Howard arrives, we'll drive out to get it. Not that there's much in it. We have no real money. Just the house and ten thousand in investment certificates which I'd managed to put aside for…well, for our old age, in case we needed care.”

A clatter from the corner of the room startled them. Don had placed his drink on the table. The guy's tight as a drum, Green thought, and jotted that thought down too for future use before retrieving his line of questioning.

“What about the sale of the hardware store? Didn't that bring in some money?”

Ruth coloured slightly. “No, there were some debts. Those were hard economic times everywhere, and…”

Don roused himself from the corner. “And Eugene drank everything away, Ruth. Why don't you simply say so!”

“Don, please. Under the circumstances…” Ruth tried to silence him again, but this time he shook his head.

“If the cop thinks it might be murder, then he should know what kind of a guy Eugene was. He was a drunk. You know it, I know it, and Howard knows it. Hell, even this cop knows it. He's probably seen the autopsy report! The reason you're stuck with no money now is because the bastard drank it all away.”

Margaret leaned forward and reached for the tea pot. “Inspector, some more tea?”

He looked at her in surprise. “No, thanks.”

Ruth had not taken her eyes off Don. “You children don't know what he's been through. He's had a hard life.”

Don rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go again. The old war trauma.”

“Yes! The war.”

“Ruth, the war's been over for almost sixty years!”

“For the men who were in it, it is never over,” she retorted.

“My father fought in the war,” Don replied. “It didn't turn him into a drunk.”

Unexpectedly, Margaret burst into tears. She slammed down the tea pot and whirled to her husband. “He's dead! Can't you let up on him just for once! He's gone now!” With that she hurried out of the room.

*    *    *

Striding through the major crimes squad room, Green caught Sullivan's eye and gestured to his office. Once inside, he dropped the bag he was carrying on the desk and extracted two juicy smoked meat sandwiches from Nate's Delicatessen.

He handed one to his subordinate with a sheepish grin.

“Minor detour. Food to feed the brain cells.”

“I'd say they're overfed already, at least the imagination part,” Sullivan replied, picking up the three-inch thick masterpiece. Chunks of succulent meat tumbled from his grasp. “Cough it up, Green. Let's get this over with. The Crowns will be pacing.”

With quick, deft strokes, Green filled him in while they ate. “I tell you, there's a lot more to the Walker family than meets the eye.”

Sullivan was sprawled in the chair opposite, his huge feet taking up most of the spare space on Green's desk. “Not really anything that points to murder, though.”

“Oh, come on! We've got a long-suffering wife, a son-in-law who doesn't buy the family's pact of secrecy, a daughter caught in the middle and an old recluse slowly drinking his family's savings away. A lot of strange, repressed passions in the air, Brian.”

Sullivan chewed awhile, then shrugged. “Just an ordinary day down on the farm, buddy.”

Green glanced up from picking stray bits of meat from the wrapper, surprised by Sullivan's tone. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Sullivan shook his head as if to banish an irritation. “Nothing. Just thinking what the hell is normal anyway.”

Green snorted. “That's fine, go philosophical on me. But something is fishy. Margaret's scared, Don's scared, and even the old lady's hiding something. I intend to find out what.” He licked the last of the juice from his fingers, then rose and stuck his head out his door. To his relief he spotted the very person he needed. Constable Bob Gibbs had been with CID for over a year but still jumped like a startled rabbit whenever Green pounced on him, which he did with alarming regularity. No one was more obsessive and dogged with details than Bob Gibbs. The young man listened, jotted down the strange request without missing a stroke and disappeared behind his computer.

Sullivan eyed Green warily. “And while you have poor Gibbs running around after old war records, what else do you have up your sleeve?”

Green smiled. “You and I are going to Renfrew.”

“Now? Are you crazy? The Crowns are waiting.”

“After the Crowns. It's the next logical step in the investigation.”

Sullivan picked up his sandwich wrapper, crunched it into a ball and lobbed it over the desk, hitting the basket dead centre. “Forget it, Mike. I've got some statements to review, then I'm going home. Home. Where all good family men should be around supper time.”

“How about tomorrow?”

Sullivan removed his feet from the desk and stood up to leave. “Tomorrow's Saturday. My day off, remember? A day when all good family men…you know the drill.”

Green followed him out, trying to quell his frustration. Sullivan was right; the meeting with the Crown attorneys would take all afternoon, and it was too late to set up a trip to Renfrew that day anyway. As for tomorrow, Sullivan was also right. Green couldn't run his life as if he were the only one in it. Walker's case would still be around Monday.

But Fate would not let the case slip from his mind for that long. No sooner had he returned to his office later that afternoon when his phone buzzed. Mr. Donald Reid was downstairs in the foyer, requesting to see him, the desk sergeant said.

Surprise, surprise.

Green ushered Don Reid into an empty interview room and took out his notebook expectantly. Don had clearly not relaxed one iota since Green's visit out to the house. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and shifted from one side of his chair to the other as he looked for a place to begin.

“You have some information for me?” Green prompted.

“Yeah. Look, I'm not trying to badmouth Eugene, but if you're thinking he may have been murdered—well, there's a lot Ruth will never tell you. She's so protective, and she can never see the other side of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he's a complex guy, and there are things that went on that Ruth didn't know anything about. I think he could have known people and done things that he kept secret.”

“Like what?” Green demanded, getting tired of the vagueness.

“Like talking with someone in his car the day he died. Ruth thinks he doesn't know anybody foreign, but the truth is— before they moved to the country, every Saturday he'd go drinking at this bar in Renfrew. He had a whole life there that he never told Ruth about, and he must have met guys there. Twenty years ago, just as an example, he got in a fight. The police were involved. You guys probably have it on your computer, if you want to check.”

Green's ears perked up, but he kept his expression deadpan. Contrary to common belief, the police didn't have Joe Public's every little transgression on their national database, and each jurisdiction guarded its own cases jealously. “Why don't you tell me about it? Save me the trouble of tracking it down.”

Don waved his hand as if to distance himself. “Eugene beat somebody up. Bar fight. I don't know that much about it. Eugene never talked about it, and he never said why it happened.”

“Did he get in a lot of bar fights?”

“No, that's the thing. When he drank he usually got morose and surly. He'd say bitter, vicious things, but I never knew him to use his fists.” Don's words began to flow faster, as if his pent-up thoughts had just been released. “It was a surprise to me when Ruth called and said he'd been arrested for beating up a man in a bar.”

“So tell me what you did learn.”

“Well, in those days he was a weekend drunk. The hardware store would close at six o'clock on Saturday, and Eugene would head for Paddy's Bar and Grill on Raglan Street for a couple to unwind. That couple would stretch to seven or eight, and he'd usually roll into the house at two in the morning when the bar closed. He'd spend Sunday nursing a hangover with more booze and Monday sleeping it off.”

“Did he hang out with a particular group at Paddy's place?”

Don shrugged. “Eugene wasn't a party animal, but Renfrew's a small town, and it was probably the same crowd of serious drinkers who closed the place each Saturday. They drank, watched the hockey game, argued about sports.” He made no attempt to keep the contempt out of his voice. “The night of the fight, one of the local farmers brought along his cousin from out of town—Hamilton, I think—who was visiting the family. This cousin and Eugene exchanged words —no one knows what it was about—and suddenly Eugene jumped him. He threw him against the bar and started beating the shit out of him. The others broke it up as fast as they could, but it put the guy in the hospital. Eugene was charged, but I don't know what happened to the case. He probably got off.” Don shook his head, and his lips curled in a curious sneer.