Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (114 page)

But why had Tom turned up in Ashford Landing in the first place? How could he possibly have known Lawrence was there? And what had he been doing at the old family homestead? Tom had claimed he was looking for Derek’s address, but that was almost certainly a lie. Yet he was obviously looking for something, for he was tearing the basement apart. Robbie had said Tom was adamant about retrieving some important things from the house. And so far, he hadn’t succeeded.

“No,” Green said quietly, breaking the silence of minutes. “I don’t think he’s dropped out of sight yet. Because he hasn’t accomplished what he came back here for.”

He was about to explain when there was a sharp rap on his door and a young constable stuck his head in. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said diffidently. “But Rural West is calling. Seems there’s trouble again at Ashford Landing.”

Green’s heart leaped into his throat. “The Boisvert farm?”

“No, sir. Some woman called McMartin. She wants you there right away.”

Edna McMartin was visible even from the highway, clothed in a bright yellow rain slicker and massive Wellingtons. She was planted outside the front door of her house with her arms folded across her chest and her grey hair frizzing in the icy mist. As Sullivan drew the car to a stop, she stomped over, her face crimson and her eyes blazing.

“He took the truck, the bastard! Bold as you please, comes out of the woods, gets in the truck, and takes off!”

The two detectives climbed out and Sullivan took her elbow to steer her towards the house. A light rain had begun again, turning the ground slick.

“Were the keys in the truck?” he asked gently.

She shook off his hand and stalked ahead towards the door. “I told you cops that! I’d just come back from town, and I leave them in sometimes when I’m going to go out again. I don’t expect anybody to steal it right off my front doorstep!”

Sullivan followed her inside. “You’re sure it was Tom Pettigrew?”

“I was right there at the kitchen sink.” She led the way through to the kitchen, which smelled of spices. Six small pumpkins sat on the counter, surrounded by an array of cookware. She gestured through the window which overlooked the front yard and the outbuildings. “Saw him plain as day.”

“But you haven’t see him since he was a young man.”

“Tom Pettigrew doesn’t change! Same shifty-eyed weasel that used to lead all the boys into trouble. Dropped out of school, good for nothing but bush parties, drugs and fornication.” She pursed her lips. “Norm should have sent him to the army like he planned. And Katherine! See no evil, hear no evil. Not from her angelic boys!” She paused, as if realizing she’d gone too far. Sullivan had seated himself at the table with his notebook, while Green remained by the window, content to let Sullivan take the lead. Green was looking out, not at the spot where the truck had been, but at the woods where Edna said Tom had come from. The woods that ran along by the river. A faint alarm bell went off in his head.

“We’ve notified our uniform patrol and the Ontario Provincial Police,” Sullivan was saying. “Did you see which way he turned on the highway?”

She pointed south. Toward Toronto, Green noted. Quickly, Sullivan relayed the truck’s description and plate number to the
OPP
Comm Centre so that they could issue a region-wide alert to watch all the highways leading to the 401.

“If he has half a brain, he won’t take the 401,” Green interrupted. “He’ll stick to the back country roads.” Which he probably knows inside out, he thought but didn’t say. No point rousing Edna’s ire even further. Her crimson colour had not abated one bit.

“He better not wreck that truck,” she retorted. “Else I’ll hold you boys up in Ottawa responsible. You had him yesterday, why the dickens did you let him go!”

Green was saved from having to explain about writs of Habeas Corpus by a commotion in the back room. An instant later, Jeb McMartin appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed in mud-caked work boots and a sodden flannel hunting vest. Leaves and twigs clung to his vest and hair. Edna opened her mouth to scold him, but his worried frown stopped her short.

“I can’t find Kyle,” he said. “I’ve looked all over. Chicken coup, barn, even the path down to the river.”

“His rabbit hutch?” she demanded.

He nodded. “All the hiding places I could think of.” Husband and wife looked at each other in silent, shared panic. It was Edna who finally gave word to their fear. “The truck!”

“Wait a minute,” Green said. “Are you saying Kyle might have been in the truck Tom stole?”

She turned on him. “This is your fault! You and that daughter of yours. Dressing like a whore, giving him ideas. She never should have been allowed in the classroom looking like that. It was a disgrace—”

“Just a minute!” Once Green recovered from his surprise, his temper flared. “My daughter has nothing to do with this. Kyle was at home when he disappeared.”

“But I couldn’t send him to school, could I? Not with her getting him all hot and bothered. A boy like that, with the mind of a child. I told the teacher—”

Green was about to leap into the fray again, but Sullivan cut him off with a soothing hand. “Let’s concentrate on the boy,” he said to Edna. “What makes you think he was in the truck?”

She shot one last glance at Green before reining herself in. Privately, Green thanked Sullivan for his wisdom. The woman’s son was missing, and he doubted he would be any calmer in her shoes.

The husband stepped into the breach, wringing his hands. “Kyle was angry at us for keeping him home from school. When he’s angry, he...he hides. He likes the back of the truck because it’s covered, and I keep my hunting and fishing gear there. Fishing tackle, ammunition—”

Sullivan glanced at him sharply. “Firearms?”

Jeb swallowed. “No, but I have knives for gutting game.” He sank down into a chair at the table as if his legs would no longer hold him. “He’ll be frightened. He doesn’t know his way around the countryside, and if Tom spots him—”

“We don’t believe Tom is dangerous, sir,” Green lied, hoping to hell he was right. Even if Tom had actually killed Lawrence, surely to God he wouldn’t harm an innocent kid.

“You don’t know Tom. He’ll try to outrun the police. And if he’s been drinking...” The man began to rock. Sullivan spoke calmly, calling them both back to task.

“How much gas was in the tank?”

“Maybe half a tank? He can get almost all the way to Toronto without a stop. And Kyle—” Jeb’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, my God, my boy will freeze to death in the back.”

Sullivan leaned forward. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. and Mrs. McMartin. We’ll find him long before that. As Inspector Green said, we have no reason to believe Tom is dangerous. He’s not fleeing apprehension, or anything like that. Probably he just wanted the quickest way home.” He reached for the phone. “We’ll get the
OPP
on it right away. They have the full range of emergency response capability.”

Even to Green, Sullivan’s reassurance sounded hollow. They had no idea how dangerous or desperate Tom was, nor what he was up to. He couldn’t possibly know they had suspicions about Lawrence’s death, so this reckless flight in a stolen truck made no sense! The alarm bells began to ring louder in Green’s head, for the McMartin farm was right next to the Boisvert farm by a path through the woods.

Sullivan had moved out onto the porch out of earshot while he talked to the
OPP
, but now he returned. “Two officers from regional headquarters in Smith Falls are on their way over here to get some information on Kyle and Tom, and they’ll keep you informed at all times. They’ll also be collecting an item of Kyle’s clothing for the canine unit, in case that’s needed.”

Sullivan’s tone was the essence of calm authority, and Green watched the McMartins gradually uncoil. While they went in search of clothing, Green put in a quick call to the Boisvert house. There was no response. He told himself it was early yet, barely four o’clock, but by now the alarm bells were deafening. He asked Sullivan for the keys to the Impala.

“Stay here until the
OPP
has things under control,” he said, grabbing his raincoat. “Then meet me over at the Boisvert house. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

The Boisvert farm looked deserted as Green raced down the muddy lane. The minivan was parked out front, and there was no sign of trouble, but when Green climbed out of his car and crunched up the gravel, he heard frantic yapping from inside. There was no answer to his ring, nor to his knock. The door was unlocked, but when he tried to step in, he was confronted by a snarling, snapping flurry of fur. Quickly he withdrew, but not before he’d glimpsed the torso and lower limbs of a body sprawled in the hall. Slamming the door shut against the dog, he dialled 911 and snapped out orders for police and ambulance assistance.

Afterwards he dashed around the exterior of the house, checking for intruders and peeping in windows until he was able to see the entire scene. Daylight was already fading under the iron gray sky, but he could just make out the body of Isabelle face down on the floor with a dark pool spreading across the floor beneath her head. With a curse, he ran back to the door.

“Chouchou, it’s okay,” he soothed, holding out his hand, but the dog launched itself at his fingers. Steeling himself, he burst through the door and rushed at it with a menacing roar. It scrambled backwards into the kitchen, its tiny nails clicking on the tile. He slammed the kitchen door shut, flicked on the hall light and turned to Isabelle. Quickly, he checked her pulse and breathing. She was warm, her pulse strong and steady. He allowed himself to breathe again. Softly, he called to her. No response. Louder. Still nothing.

The hair at the back of her head was matted with crimson blood which had pooled beneath her in a glistening stain, but he could see no active bleeding nor any fragments of broken bone. Her colour was bleached, but her breathing was steady. She’ll be all right, he thought to reassure himself as he removed a knitted throw from the couch in the living room to spread over her. Then he dialled 911 again to update her condition before doing a quick check of the rest of the house. It was standard procedure, but he knew it was pointless. The person who’d done this was long gone.

When he returned to await the ambulance, the rest of his detective instincts belatedly took over. He phoned for a forensics team and a quick survey of the scene. The door to the basement was open and the light was on at the base of the stairs. Isabelle lay in the kitchen, near the basement door. She had been struck from behind, probably when she was emerging from the basement, and had pitched forward into the room. Tom had either hidden in the kitchen behind the open basement door, or he had followed her up from the basement.

Green fished some nitryl gloves from his pocket, slipped them on and ducked down the basement stairs. The boxes from yesterday were gone, but otherwise the basement looked undisturbed. No signs of a struggle except for a heavy cast-iron pan lying at the base of the stairs. Leaving it in place, he climbed back upstairs and knelt to check on Isabelle again. She was still out cold, but this time her eyelids flickered slightly. He felt his spirits lift further, but as his worry dissipated, a fresh anger took hold.

He should never have let the bastard go! Tom Pettigrew had played them all for fools, and in the brief time he had been in town, he’d cut a swath of destruction and deception a mile wide through the lives of relatives and innocent strangers alike. A swath of destruction that had not ended yet, not as long as a bewildered, mentally disabled boy was hurtling through the darkness in the back of a stolen pick-up truck.

As Green sat on the floor at Isabelle’s side, he sifted the silence for the sound of approaching sirens and cursed the delay of the long country drive. Then he glimpsed a small white corner of something peeking out from under the door next to the kitchen. It looked like a piece of paper. Curious, he opened the door to discover a closet packed with boxes, brooms and a vacuum cleaner. On the floor lay a folded piece of paper which had apparently slid under the door and lodged against a box. He retrieved it and brought it into the hall light.

Unfolding it, Green discovered it was a sheet of grimy foolscap, covered in a large, untidy scrawl and creased as if it had been folded and unfolded countless times. There was a date at the top. June 17, 1990. Green’s heart leaped. A voice from the past!

Dear Benji,
Happy B-day! Congratulashuns! You’re a big man now,
twenty-one, hansum as the devil and you even bought your self
a set of wheels! How about driving down to the big TO and
taking your old brother out for a nite on the town? I no Im not
much to brag about but the truth is I miss you man. People
yused to call me the tuff one and Derek the sensitive one but
the truth is I loved him more than anything. He was my big
brother and he was sposed to be ar shining egsample. Hell,
Dad tried to drive that into me offen enuff. I hope hes eased
up some, at least on Robbie. I died when Derek did, thats the
truth. Mabee its keeping the secret all these years. Mabee if we
had it out in the open and had a proper buriel for him, mabee
I coude get over it. But I found the body, man. And I was the
one that had to catch that fucking lunatic and lock him up. I
no you dont like to think about it all. Us setting the fire and
making sure every goddamn bit of blood and brains was
burned. but I keep thinking hes not at peace. Ar eny of us? Im
sorry, I was just going to wish you an happy birthday, not tell
you my sad sack life. Ill get by, I always do. So—

Green’s heart hammered as he deciphered the page. The note was unsigned, but he knew it had to be from Tom; it was written in the same illiterate scrawl as the letter to Sophia. He re-read it, turned it over, searched for more pages, but there were none.