Once Upon a Time (7 page)

Green turned to Sullivan. “Call Gibbs. He's looking into Walker's war record. Get him to check immigration too and have the reports ready when we get back.”

*    *    *

“Why are you so interested in a twenty-year-old barroom brawl, Mike?” Sullivan took his eyes off the narrow country road long enough to glance questioningly at Green. They were on their way out to the Walkers' country house, having left a disappointed pair of OPP officers behind at the station. Sullivan had seen the curiosity in Kennelly's eyes and had tried to persuade Green to let them participate in the inquiries, since it seemed a slow day in Renfrew County, but Green was adamant. He didn't want extra officers he didn't know trampling all over the evidence in the house. The extent of Green's diplomacy had been to assign the officers the task of setting up interviews for them in the afternoon with people who knew the Walkers.

“Because it's out of character with what we've learned about Walker,” Green replied, “and it seems to be a mystery. Maybe his neighbours and acquaintances can shed some light on what he was really like.”

“They won't tell us a thing, I can guarantee you that. A couple of big city cops barging in out of nowhere? Forget it.”

Green grinned at him. “Give me some credit.”

The directions Ruth Walker had supplied were clear and precise, but even so, after the fourth turn into progressively narrower back roads, Green was glad Sullivan was behind the wheel. All around them stretched nothing but drifting snow, icy fields and the grey lace of barren trees against the sky. Ruth had been surprised when the two officers had asked her permission to search the house, but she had not hesitated an instant. If she had anything to hide, Green thought, she seemed confident it wouldn't be found.

When they finally turned into the long, narrow lane, they saw the Walkers' white clapboard cottage set in a windswept clearing at the end. It looked shabby and neglected in the harsh morning sun, and as they drew nearer, Green saw it was badly in need of paint. Sullivan plowed up the lane, parked about fifty feet from the house and surveyed the snowy expanse stretching to the house. At first glance, it seemed to be unbroken except for the tire tracks leading from the shed to the front door and then to the lane.

But as they began their approach on foot, Green suddenly held up his hand.

“Don't move!” He squatted in the snow, peered at the tracks, then took out his notebook and glanced up excitedly.

“Come look at this! Carefully! What does this look like to you?”

Sullivan studied the marks in the snow. Inside the tracks, at roughly two foot intervals, the tire markings were blurred in an oval shape. “Like someone has smudged the tire track. To wipe out something?”

Green's eyes narrowed speculatively. “The tire tracks are partially erased by the wind and snow, and that stopped about noon Wednesday. Before Walker was even discovered dead. But these marks are clear. Someone has walked in this tire tread since the snow stopped, and has tried to smudge over the footprint as they went. Which suggests someone has been out to the house since the Walkers left but tried to conceal that fact. Do you still think his death was natural causes?”

Sullivan backed up carefully. “I'll get the camera.”

Thirty minutes later, they had a roll of detailed photos of the tracks leading up to the house and of the footprints in the snow at the front door. One set of partially obliterated prints with a deeply treaded sole led from the front door and trampled around in an aimless circle before disappearing at the edge of the tire track. Suspecting the prints were Eugene Walker's, Green made a note to check his boot soles. Inside two of these large boot prints were the remnants of smudged smaller prints again, leading towards the house. These too had been carefully brushed over in an attempt to erase them. Someone had been very, very careful.

Curious, Green bent to scrutinize the front door, but there were no scratches to suggest forced entry. Using a key provided by Ruth Walker, he eased the door open and stepped inside, scanning the hall rapidly for signs of intrusion or disturbance. There were none. The house was quiet and neat. Sullivan took fifteen minutes to photograph every aspect of it before they put on latex gloves and began the search. Methodically they made their way through the small house, sketching and making notes. The front door opened into a small living room on the right with a fireplace at the far end and a door through to the kitchen and pantry beyond. Upstairs were three doors, the first leading into the bathroom and the other two into bedrooms. The furniture in all the rooms was old and frayed, testimony to the Walkers' limited budget, but the slip covers had been assiduously darned and redarned. The bookcases were handmade by an inexpert carpenter, and the piano keys were yellow with age and wear.

Green tapped the keys idly and was surprised that the sound was still rich and warm, evoking memories of his own mother, not withered by disease but vibrant and tireless as she'd been in his youth, coaxing melody from the leaden fingers of the children on the block. Or all alone at night, after the day's work, racing her fingers over the keys for hours for the sheer rapture of the sound.

He moved on to study the titles in the bookcase curiously. There was a large collection of British mysteries ranging from Agatha Christie to P.D. James, an aging leather-bound collection of Dickens, a sampling of Atwood, Shields and Robertson Davies, and a shelf of Romantic poets. These all suggested the refined feminine taste of Ruth Walker. There was a corner of gardening and bird-watching books which Green also intuitively connected to Ruth, and another small shelf of best-selling spy thrillers of a more masculine genre. Wedged in the corner was a faded black Bible, St. James version. Green opened it to see the inscription on the inner cover in quilled black ink.
“To our beloved daughter Ruth, London 1932”
.

The Bible, despite its age, did not look much used. As Green flipped through it, a brittle, yellowed square of folded paper fell out. It was a letter, dated Feb. 26, 1947, and written in the same elegant, old-fashioned hand as the bible's inscription.

Dearest Ruth,

Your father and I received your letter of Christmas time and although we are delighted that you have found new friends and new purpose in your work down there, we urge you not to move too quickly without ensuring that any relationship is firmly founded in mutual interests and values. You are young now, and full of hope and the desire to heal, but two wars have taught your father and me that there are differences between people, differences in upbringing, outlook and values which may loom large once the initial excitement has had a chance to calm. As well, we don't know what these people have endured and how deeply they may be scarred.

    This is not to dampen your enthusiasm nor to deter your generous nature, but rather to temper it with care, lest you suffer again the pain which I am sure is still all too fresh.

    Enough said of prudence. Things are still very hard in the city, with long queues and shortages, and people still homeless. The winter has been very hard on your father and his cough is much worse. I only hope that we can come down to see you when spring arrives, for the sun and the sea air would do him good. I don't believe he has ever recovered from Albert—Lord knows I never shall—and the sorrow saps his strength. But we shall manage, my dear, and we count the days until we can visit you. All our love,

    Mother

Pensively, Green turned the letter over in his hands. By itself, it was a mere fragment of history, yet it added one small piece to the mystery of Walker's life. He called Sullivan over to photograph it, and then he replaced it and the Bible carefully back into place. He and Sullivan then searched through every book on the shelves. If a book could be used as a storage place once, why not twice? But they found nothing, either there or in the rest of the cluttered room.

Next they moved up to the larger bedroom. It had been intended as a master bedroom, but they found only men's clothing in the closets and drawers. Ruth's clothing was next door in the smaller bedroom.

“Looks like they slept apart,” Green muttered.

“It's not much fun sleeping with a drunk. He probably crashed around a lot and got up in the middle of the night to piss.”

“Check the desk drawer for those investment certificates Mrs. Walker mentioned.”

Sullivan opened the drawer of a battered maple desk and found it crammed full of papers—mortgage agreements, house deeds, sales receipts, most over five years old. He found the certificates inside a folder and counted them carefully.

“Eight.”

“Eight?” Green said. “There are supposed to be ten.”

Sullivan counted again. “There aren't.”

Green raised an eyebrow. “Two thousand bucks. If this was a robbery, why not take all ten?”

“Maybe he was hoping they wouldn't be missed. Remember how careful the person was to erase their tracks.”

Green shook his head. “Or maybe they weren't stolen. At least not then. Leave them out. I'll try to get Ident up here for fingerprinting. And I want to check up on Don Reid's finances—”

Sullivan frowned. “Why him?”

Green was remembering Don's reaction the day before when the investment certificates were mentioned. “Just a hunch.”

“Two thousand bucks isn't much of a motive for murder.”

“Depends on how desperate you are,” Green countered, rifling through the shoe boxes on the floor of the closet. “Remember the junkies who kill for one more fix, or the winos—”

“Yeah, but we're not talking about drug dealers and bums here, Mike. This guy lives in Arlington Woods and drives a BMW. Two thousand bucks is peanuts to him.”

“Maybe. But something is wrong. Margaret is scared, and Don's trying to put me on another track. Let's just see what turns up.”

They found nothing else of interest in Eugene's bedroom. Ruth's smaller bedroom had another desk with all the recent bills and receipts, neatly bundled and labelled. Their bank balance was modest, but in the black.

Sullivan grunted. “Better than mine. Lizzie wants to take up downhill skiing with the school this winter, but you should see the price of the equipment. And that's just one kid! Wait till my littlest starts wanting to be a goalie like his brother.”

“Cheer up, Brian. Look, I'll be sixty-five by the time I pay off that little vinyl-sided cube I bought at the End of the Earth.” Green turned for one last glance around the room before closing the door. “Check out the kitchen while I do the basement.”

Downstairs he found a ceiling bulb controlled by a chain and turned it on to reveal a dank, cobwebby cellar. The corners were stacked with the relics of a lifetime—old bicycles, buggies, broken chairs, a sewing machine, boxes of old clothes. Green tried to dig through the clutter and immediately began to sneeze.

The hell with this, he thought to himself. No one's been near this stuff in ten years. He was just about to leave when something caught his eye. He had moved some boxes and a card table aside, and in the process uncovered three cartons which looked less dusty than the rest. Pulling them out into the room, he opened them to reveal thirty-two quarts of cheap Scotch whiskey. Surprised, he called Sullivan down to photograph them.

“So this is where the old man kept his stash!” Brian observed. “Jesus, there must be almost five hundred bucks of whiskey in there.”

Green closed the boxes and stepped back, dusting off his gloves. “Let's get Ident to fingerprint this stuff too. I'd like to know who brought it in here. It's too heavy for Ruth, even if she did want to feed her husband's habit. And I don't think Walker could have carried it, either, in his poor health.”

The two men began back up the stairs. “Find anything in the kitchen?” Green asked.

“It was easy to search,” Sullivan replied. “Nice, neat lady. Not a packrat like her husband seems to be. I bet he wouldn't let her throw out one damn thing in the basement there when they moved. Looks like they ate simply but managed okay. I didn't find anything weird. Except this,” he remarked almost as an afterthought, picking up a small black box from the kitchen table. Inside were some rusty instruments and a bunch of oversized keys. “I found it at the back of the pantry. Looks like an old tool box that hasn't been used in at least ten years. I found a newer tool box in the cupboard over the fridge with the usual screwdrivers and wrenches in it.”

Green examined the pantry from which the box had been removed. A rim of dust and grime marked the spot where the box had long sat undisturbed. It was virtually hidden behind household cleaning equipment, bottled drinks and cans—all dust free, fresh-looking, and neatly arranged by contents. By contrast, the rusty old tool box seemed out of place.

Green carried the box over to the window. On closer examination it looked more like a small metal storage box painted black with a hand-painted border of coloured flowers barely visible beneath the rust and the grime. It had a small lock like a jewelry box, but it was broken. Inside the box was an old rusted screwdriver with a badly worn wooden handle, a hammer of similar vintage, a hand gimlet and a pair of blackened pliers.

“Jeez, these tools look really ancient,” Green muttered, turning the hammer over in his hands. “I know the guy owned a hardware store, but was he into antiques?”

“They remind me of some old tools I found in the back of the barn once when I was a kid. My mother said they were used by the early farmers who settled the valley in the nineteenth century. Handmade by a blacksmith—that's what gives them the primitive look.”

“Let's take them back to town and see if we can get any information on them.” Green turned his attention back to the black box. He turned it over, scrutinizing the metal carefully. On the bottom, in the corner, he found what he was seeking—a name. Kressman, Ozorkow.