Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (110 page)

“We’re still stuck with the same question though, Mike. What brought Derek back? It’s just too big a coincidence to have three brothers show up in the same place twenty years later.”

“I agree there are still a lot of things that don’t fit.” Green paused, feeling more relaxed now that he had aired all his ideas. “I don’t know which brother killed Derek. But I do think if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of it, we’d better start taking a closer look at what Derek’s been up to all these years. And I think, just to verify Tom’s story, we should still have Angie Hogencamp up to see the body.”

At eight o’clock the next morning, Sullivan was scrolling through his emails, checking for urgent ones and half hoping he’d encounter one from HR that apologized for the mix-up and congratulated him on his promotion. It wasn’t there, of course, and the heaviness of the day settled upon him like a wet shroud when he reached the end of the list. Preempting him, Green had called an eight o’clock team briefing to plan the next stage of the investigation, and Sullivan was going to be late. With an effort he pulled out the Pettigrew file and picked up the phone to call Mrs. Hogencamp.

When she picked up, she sounded breathless and rushed.

“I’m so glad you called, Sergeant!” she exclaimed. “Your questions yesterday got me thinking. I don’t know if there was a girl or not, but Lawrence was obsessed about something sexual when he was first admitted. He kept rambling to the nurses about sin and something being an abomination, about how God punished sinners, and he tried to save them. It made no sense, and the doctors just called it word salad. Gibberish. But if you listened carefully, he did seem to be trying to explain something. Trying to tell us something that had happened.”

Sullivan flipped open his notebook, fully alert. Just when they thought they’d figured out what the case was all about, another ball came in from left field. Green was going to want every word. “Could you figure out what he was trying to say?”

“That he’d somehow failed. That Satan had taken control and had to be destroyed.”

Sullivan groaned. Satan. There was a bad guy for you. “And did you figure out who this Satan figure was?”

“No, but he kept saying he had to go back home to get Satan.”

“Did he mention any of his brothers in these ramblings?”

“He mentioned several names over and over, but I can’t remember them all. It’s been such a long time.”

“Try, Mrs. Hogencamp. This is very important.”

“Oh, dear.” Sullivan listened to the sound of her muttering to herself. “Tommy? Derry, something like that.”

“Derek?” Sullivan asked carefully.

“Derry, Lorrie—oh dear, I forget.”

“What about girls? Anyone called Sophia?”

“Oh yes!” Mrs. Hogencamp’s voice rose with excitement. “That’s when he’d get really agitated. That’s when the Satan and sex and abomination would come in. His passion was actually quite scary.”

“I’m not an expert in schizophrenia, Mrs. Hogencamp, so I need your help. Based on what you know of him, say he liked a girl and he surprised one of his brothers in bed with her. Would that trigger this Satan and abomination rant?”

“The boys had a very strict upbringing,” she said. “Probably sex outside of marriage would be a very serious sin. If Lawrence had been aroused by a girl, he would have seen himself as dirty and evil. If he found his brother acting on those desires he loathed and repressed in himself...yes, he certainly would consider it an abomination.”

Sullivan hesitated, searching for the most neutral phrase so he would not put words in her mouth. “What would he be likely to do? Kill himself?”

“It depends on how much self-loathing he had for his own sexual urges.” She paused, her uncertainty returning. Sullivan could feel her retreating. “It’s complicated to speculate. I hardly feel qualified...”

“Guess.”

“He’s a paranoid. Betrayal and revenge are central to their delusions. I think, if he were going to kill himself, he’d be much more likely to take one or both of them with him.”

Back in the days when Green was in the field, his briefings had been one of the highlights of Sullivan’s day. Green had a way of getting the big picture and seeing how the evidence fit together that was pure genius. Even his wild flights of fancy proved right more often than not. In his field days, he loved to pace in front of the chalkboard, surrounded by crime scene photos and witness statements, scribbling points and drawing arrows back and forth until his case summary looked like a massive drunken spider’s web. However, Bob Gibbs had long since demonstrated the power of computer software to project the case discussion onto a screen and to underline, highlight, and link ideas so that everyone could decipher them. Furthermore, at the end, the discussion and action plans were neatly summarized on a file in a disc, rather than erased with the next shift. So Green continued to pace, but he had replaced his chalk with a laser pointer and relinquished the recording role to Gibbs.

By the time Sullivan finally reached the briefing room after his phone call, Gibbs had a neat diagram projected onto the screen at the end of the room. In the centre of the web was a big circle marked “Derek?”, and “murder/suicide” Around them like satellites were bubbles containing the names of witnesses and family members, with questions to be answered. Green was just pointing to Derek’s bubble on the screen.

“Detective Peters, I want you to—” He broke off as he spotted Sullivan, and he raised a questioning brow. Whether the question was personal or professional, Sullivan wasn’t sure. The man was far too astute not to have noticed his black mood.

“Any developments?” Green asked with careful ambiguity.

Briefly, Sullivan summarized his phone conversation with Angela Hogencamp. He caught the glint of triumph in Green’s eyes, but this time it only served to depress him, for Green had said all along that Sophia was at the bottom of things. Why was the damn man right so much of the time?

“Bingo,” Green said. “You’ve got a relationship with Mrs. Hogencamp, so I think you should pursue things at her end. Get her up here to view the body. I want you to show her Robbie’s photo album too. It has pictures of all the brothers, and maybe she can tell if any of them visited Lawrence in recent months. As for these other tasks,” he waved his pointer across the screen. “Can you think of any avenues of investigation that I’ve missed?”

You know fucking well there aren’t any, Sullivan thought. Since when do you miss anything? And since when does it matter what I think anyway? I’m only the officer of record on the goddamn case.

His scowl must have given him away, because before he could shake his head, Green walked over, laid a page of notes in front of him and headed out the door. “Okay. I got the briefing started while we were waiting for you, but I leave you to it. I was going to suggest Peters track down Derek’s old college friends and Gibbs carry on looking for Sophia. But whatever you think is best.”

Sullivan felt a prick of shame for his childish thoughts. He pushed back the bleakness with an effort as he studied the screen. “Any thoughts on the Pettigrew father? We don’t have much on him. I can pop by the hospital after I pick up Robbie’s album.”

“No need,” said Green cheerfully. “I thought I’d fit him in myself during my lunch hour. The hospital’s not far from my house, so I can drop in on Bob the contractor.” With a grin, he ducked out the door.

It took Sullivan fifteen minutes to complete the briefing. He had no qualms about sending Gibbs off with an Italian translator to phone all the Vincellis in the small Tuscany town where Sophia had supposedly been sent. But he wanted to talk Peters through every step of her inquiry before he unleashed her on the educated, well-spoken and politically correct crowd at Carleton University. No psychos, shrinks and the like, not a hint of cop bluster or arrogance. Ask politely, listen to the answers, and always thank them for their help.

He could tell from her pout that she was insulted by the tight leash, but he had no patience for egos. Let her prove him wrong by doing a first-rate job. After he’d dispatched her, he was heading back to his desk to call Mrs. Hogencamp again when he spotted Green watching him through his half open door. Green cocked his head to signal him to come in. Sullivan hesitated, bristling at the prospect of more Green meddling. But instead, when he finally entered the office, Green rose to shut the door behind him. He looked grave.

“Brian, I didn’t want you to hear this from anyone else. Adam Jules is being transferred to East Division and Barbara Devine is taking over
CID
.”

Sullivan groaned inwardly. They were going to have a conversation he didn’t want to have. Not now. Not when he was still feeling crapped on and sold short. Adam Jules would be a loss; he was a cop’s cop, who knew and respected every job under his command. Barbara Devine was a joke. Smart, tenacious and political, but nowhere near ready to run the most technically demanding and emotionally brutal division in the entire force. But today, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered, because for the first time in twenty years, his job didn’t matter. And he was afraid that if Green made him talk about it, he’d tell him exactly that.

Green was watching him keenly, so Sullivan kept his expression as deadpan as he could. “Worse for you than for me,” he said. “You’re closer to the angels.”

“And Gaetan Larocque is the new staff sergeant.”

“I knew that,” Sullivan said, to head off any expression of condolence.

“I was afraid you did. Tough break, Brian.”

“Not your fault. Not anyone’s fault, just the way the goddamn system works. A quota of this, a balance of that, bilingualism always an asset. Whether the guy actually knows dick all about investigating major crimes doesn’t matter.”

“Larocque’s a solid investigator. He’ll learn. And you’ll still be as indispensable around here as you always were. Probably more so.”

“Yeah, training yet another rookie cop how to conduct a professional interview.” Sullivan slumped in the chair and put his feet on the desk. Fuck it, they were going to have this conversation after all. “I’ve been thinking maybe I need to move on.”

Green looked at the ceiling. Sighed and shook his head.

“I’ve been in this unit twelve of my twenty-one years on the force, Mike. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe they don’t see me as diverse enough.”

“Brian, this place can’t run without you. Not with Devine at the helm and Larocque parading the troops.”

Sullivan smiled wryly. “The place will learn to get along. They’ve got you.”

“But there’s nothing like Major Crimes. What are you going to do? High Tech? Auto Theft?”

“Maybe. I’ll look around, see what I like. There are lots of ways of being a cop, Green, and a couple of short stints in other positions would bulk up my
CV
. So when another staff sergeant opening comes along...”

Green sank back in his chair. “Damnit, Brian,” he muttered, “I know what you’re saying, and you may be right. But promotions aren’t everything, believe me. There are a hell of a lot of guys upstairs who’d rather be doing what you’re doing. Nothing beats the satisfaction of liking your work and knowing you do a good job.”

On that note, Sullivan hauled himself to his feet and paused at the door with a smile he only half meant. “Bullshit. Inspector,” he said before he walked out.

Thirteen

 A
t eleven-thirty, when Green could stand the claustrophobia of the station no longer, he escaped instead into the noontime traffic jam of downtown Ottawa. A blustery rain battered the city, compounding his black mood as he bullied his way across the Pretoria Bridge and up towards Main Street. All the way, he cursed his stupidity. Sullivan was struggling with a very real crisis of faith in himself and in the force and deserved the understanding and respect of the one man who was probably his oldest and closest friend on the force. Yet he, Green, had offered nothing but vacuous crap! He’d been so dismayed by the prospect of losing Sullivan that he’d thought only of himself and offered the man not hope nor affirmation but platitudes. And now there was little hope of rectifying it, for Sullivan was a proud man who would take his own counsel in the privacy of his own thoughts. He was too professional not to continue to do an exemplary job on this case and others, but Green knew he would be quietly looking.

So lost in thought was Green that he failed to notice his surroundings until he drove past Bank Street and saw Robbie Pettigrew’s apartment building receding in his rainwashed rearview mirror. He did a loop back onto Bank Street and sat a few minutes in the front drive, contemplating the pouring rain. It depressed him even further to think of visiting a crippled old man in a hospital bed to inform him of his son’s death and to make him relive the tragedies of the past.

When Green finally mustered the courage to dash to the front door, a Muslim woman in traditional hijab was juggling several bags of groceries and a pair of overactive pre-schoolers while she searched her massive satchel for her key. Green’s helping hand with the bags earned him a shy nod and entrance to the lobby. Hence, he knocked on Robbie’s door unannounced and was surprised when a familiar, smoke roughened snarl emanated from within.

“Who is it?”

Sullivan had dropped Tom off at the Y, but the man had obviously made his own arrangements. Recovering quickly, Green introduced himself.

The door opened just far enough for Green to plant his toe in it, and Tom’s craggy, unshaven face filled the crack. “Well, if it ain’t the fucking cavalry.”

“Good morning, Tom. I’m here to see your brother Robert.”

“Ain’t here. Come back after five.” Tom started withdraw, then paused. “Better yet, I’ll get him to call you.”

“Well,” Green continued blithely, “my main goal is to talk to your father, who I understand is very frail, so I wanted to know if Robbie would like to accompany me. But maybe you can come instead.”

Tom recoiled. “Not on your life. What do you want to see him for?”

“I want to talk to him about Derek—about why he left, whether your father’s heard from him recently, whether he knew why Derek came back?”