Read Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle Online
Authors: Barbara Fradkin
“I was just beginning to look into banking activity,” he said. “Although with the mess this woman makes of her paperwork, it may take us a week in her apartment just to find her bank records. I’ve put everyone I can spare on it.”
Maybe I misjudged the guy, Green thought as he thanked him and told him to stay in touch with Sullivan. After signing off, Green glanced at his watch. Barbara Devine needed to be brought up to date on the headless corpse before she learned it all on the radio, but every moment that ticked by, the trail out at Pleasant Park grew colder. A five-minute executive summary was all he could spare her. He was just reaching for the phone when it rang. He snatched it up, fearing Devine had beaten him to it. Expecting a shriek to shatter glass, he was taken aback by Bob Gibbs’s soft, diffident voice. “S-sorry to disturb you, sir. But I’m not sure who to call. Staff Sergeant Sullivan is still out on a call, and I—I thought it was important.”
“What is?”
“I’ve been trying to track down Crystal Adams, sir. You remember, the one who—”
“Probably sold Lea the drugs.” Green cast his mind back to the beginning of their day. It seemed so far away. “What do you mean, trying?”
“Well, that’s the thing, sir. There’s a problem.”
Fourteen
B
ob Gibbs had started off his search buoyed by optimism, but his mood was fragile. He’d slept fitfully after falling asleep in front of the television at one o’clock in the morning and had wakened with a crick in his neck and the taste of gin in his mouth. Gibbs was not a drinker, but in recent weeks he’d found that it worked wonders to take the edge off the worry that seemed to plague him constantly. His weakness angered him. It was not him, after all, who had been ambushed by a killer and beaten within an inch of his life. It wasn’t him who had struggled first to lift a spoon to his lips and later to move one foot in front of the other at will.
It wasn’t him who raged and screamed and wept in frustration when the spoon missed its mark or the foot folded in. It was the woman he loved. Loved. As extraordinary and unbelievable as that idea was. Anyone who knew Detective Sue Peters before her injury would never have imagined the attraction. She had been brash, confident and terrifyingly blunt. He had found her lack of finesse endearing, even alluring, but it was the vulnerability she’d been forced to admit since the attack that had sealed his fate.
He knew he had to be strong for her, but inside he quaked every time he stepped out into the street. Frightening images invaded his mind. Images of hidden assailants lying in wait for him around every corner, in each dark shadow, in the recesses of his dreams. He felt safe at his computer, searching through cyberspace from the safety of his office, but when it came to field work, he started each day much like Sue, forcing one foot in front of another to get himself out of bed and onto the streets.
When the other detectives were called away to the new crime scene, he knew the pursuit of Crystal Adams now fell solely to him. He would crack this part of the case. He would track down Crystal Adams and confront her with the evidence he’d compiled. Sitting at his desk, forcing his reluctant stomach to accept a third cup of coffee, he contemplated adding a splash of Bailey’s Irish Cream. In the end, he tossed it down black in a single, angry gulp. He would get through this. He would be strong. And he stomped out the door.
His first setback occurred at the very first step of his plan. He had gone to Pleasant Park High School determined to haul Crystal out of class and demand to know where she bought the drugs she’d supplied to Lea. But she wasn’t there. Most of the school was empty as final exams got into full swing. He headed instead to the address the school had on file. It was a dilapidated townhouse in the middle of a low-rent housing project off Russell Road. Not the toughest neighbourhood in the south end, but filled with an uneasy mix of immigrants, hard luck victims and families who’d been at the bottom of the social ladder for generations. He suspected Crystal’s family was one of the latter the moment the front door cracked open and two baggy, bloodshot eyes glared out at him.
He tensed, wondering what was lurking behind the half closed door. “Mrs. Adams?” he ventured.
The woman snorted. “Who the fuck are you?” He showed his badge, and the scowl deepened. “I didn’t call youse guys.”
“I’d like to speak to Crystal Adams,” he said, almost holding his breath. So far, no stutter.
“What for?”
“Is she here, ma’am?”
The woman, whom he took to be Crystal’s mother, did not budge. “No one gets in to talk to her unless they tell me what they want with her.”
“I’d like to ask her a few questions about the girl who died at her school. They were classmates.”
“Well, you’re out of luck. She’s not here.” The door started to close.
Gibbs slipped his foot in the crack. Through the throbbing in his head, he tried to listen for sound from within, but all he could hear was the tinny laughter of a
TV
sitcom. “Where can I find her?”
“She could be anywhere. She never tells me nothing.”
He pulled out his notebook. “Do you know the names of any of her friends?”
The woman heaved an impatient sigh and started to shake her head. Gibbs held up his hand. “This is very important, Mrs. Adams. I wouldn’t trouble you for your time if it wasn’t.”
She yanked the door open and stepped back into a dark hallway cluttered with shoes and boxes. She tugged at her cotton housecoat, trying to pull it across her pregnant belly as she slouched towards the room at the end of the hall. “You better come in. I can’t stand on my feet too long.”
The house stank of smoke, urine and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Clothes, magazines and dirty dishes littered every surface.
Married
with Children
blared from the 52-inch plasma
TV
that dominated one wall, and Gibbs noticed a brand-new PlayStation 3 still sitting in its box in the corner. The sofa, however, was frayed at the edges and covered with fading stains. Crystal’s mother plopped into the middle of it and picked up the cigarette that smouldered in the ashtray on the side table, glaring at Gibbs like she was daring him to comment. He pushed an old
Ottawa Sun
off the chair and perched cautiously on the edge, concentrating on his notebook. Mrs. Adams bent her head and stubbed out the cigarette. “I don’t have much energy these days, so the place gets away from me. Crystal’s no help, in case you’re wondering. Never has been. Don’t like my boyfriend, don’t want this baby. So she goes away pretty regular. Staying with friends, she says. She’ll be back in a week or two. She always is, once all her friends’ moms get sick of feeding her.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday morning?” Mrs. Adams squinted into space, her bleached hair falling in a big hank over her eye. Yesterday’s make-up smudged her eyes. “Yeah. She woke me up early, yelling on the phone.”
“Who was she talking to?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is she pays more attention to those friends of hers than she does to me. They say jump, she asks how high. I ask her to pick up a single dish, she says she’s busy. Busy! On the phone all day, partying all night. It’s not like she’s passing school or anything, she’s only there half the time.”
“Do you remember what the argument was about?”
She looked up through her hair, frowning. “Who said we argued?”
“I meant the argument on the phone.” The suspicion was replaced by indifference. “Youse guys. She was saying you were going to find out.” She broke off, her eyes narrowing. “That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it? Not this crap about the dead girl, but you found out she’s up to something.”
Gibbs sensed the barriers going up, and he tried to think how to stop them. He’d never get this woman’s cooperation with threats or confrontation. “Mrs. Adams, your daughter may be in trouble,” he said, hoping he sounded more authoritative than he felt. “One girl is already dead, and I don’t think your daughter knows who she’s dealing with.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“That your daughter may be in danger, and we need to find her.”
“From this guy she was talking to on the phone?”
“So you know it was a man?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t know who she was talking to. But I do want to know what the fuck you’re not telling me!”
He felt a rush of nerves. The interview was getting away from him, and any minute now he’d start to stutter. “Ma’am, I’m not a-at liberty to discuss the details of the case, but we do have information that your daughter may know something about the girl’s death that puts her at risk.”
“It’s that stuff in the newspaper, right?” She waved her hand at the
Sun
, now on the floor. “That the girl was given bad drugs? That’s what you’re saying Crystal did?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because I’m not stupid, okay? Right after the phone call, Crystal ran out and bought the newspaper. Next thing I know, she calls me a stupid cow and packs her bags.”
“So she knew she was in danger?”
“No, she was just mad about what was in the paper. But my daughter don’t deal drugs. She’s no angel. and she probably smokes a little weed, but she’s not going to get into that crap. Her father’s been in jail half her life, and she always said she’s not going to make the same mistakes he did.”
Gibbs tried to think through his nerves and the throbbing in his head. He was getting a very bad feeling about the whole phone call. “It doesn’t matter if she sold the drugs or not, the point is maybe the man on the phone thinks she did. If so, that puts her in danger.”
Mrs. Adams seemed to absorb that, and some of her defiance faded. “You think he might be after her too?”
Gibbs nodded. “That’s why we have to find her.”
The woman reached for a cigarette, then caught Gibbs’s glance and put it back. She chewed a fingernail. “Well, I mostly know first names.”
“First names is a start. Plus the school they go to.”
“Oh, she knows friends all over the city. I don’t even think half of them are in school.”
Gibbs waited, pen poised, and after a moment the woman supplied half a dozen names, all of whom meant nothing to him. None matched the friends Lea had.
“What about Riley? Ever mention a Riley?”
Her face cleared. “Oh, yeah! On the phone, it was always Riley this, Riley that.”
“You mean she spoke to him often?”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t to him. It was to everyone else. He’s that hot hockey player, never gave her the time of day.”
Gibbs digested that with interest. “What about Vic? Did she mention a Vic?”
She shot him a quick glance that made Gibbs wonder if she’d recognized the name. But she shook her head. “There were other kids, Vic might have been one of them. Check with the kids at the Alternative School. She seems to know most of them, and a lot of them have been on the street. They have their connections, so when she really wanted to drop out of sight, she’d hook up with them.”
“What’s the name of the school?”
“I don’t know,” she whined. “Look it up. Norman something. It’s off Bank Street somewhere in Old Ottawa South.”
“Norman Bethune,” Green said when Gibbs told him. He dismissed a faint twinge of alarm. There were other kids at Norman Bethune, and Hannah had already admitted to a passing acquaintance with Crystal. Surely that was all it was. Two rebellious teenagers moving in the same crowd.
Green forced his attention back to the information Gibbs had uncovered. The pieces were finally falling into place. It looked as if Frank Corelli’s piece on the doctored drugs had worked too well. If Crystal was in fact the supplier, she might have feared the police were about to pin a homicide charge on her, so she had dropped out of sight.
Gibbs’ voice broke through the silent phone line. “Should I follow this up, sir?”
Green dragged his thoughts back to the present. “Where are you now?”
“I’m heading to Pleasant Park High School to check out all the names the mother gave me. Then if I have time, I thought I’d head out to this Norman Bethune place.”
Green stared at his office ceiling, trying to find perspective. Was Gibbs experienced enough to handle the delicate task, given Hannah’s connection to the school, or should he, Green, handle that part of the inquiry himself? “Sounds good, but hold off for now,” he said, equivocating. “There’s something else I need you to do at Pleasant Park.” He told Gibbs about the school custodian who’d spotted Jenna Zukowski outside the school Friday morning. “Find out what she did there, and who was the last person to see her. We’ve got about forty-eight hours unaccounted for, and we need to trace her movements.”
He heard Gibbs’s sharp intake of breath. “It’s confirmed, sir? The Bruce Pit Jane Doe is Jenna Zukowski?”
“No, it’s not confirmed yet, but it’s my working assumption, and I don’t want the trail to go cold while we wait for forensic tests.”
After he’d hung up, Green took a moment to jot down some crucial notes. With two deaths, two missing women and one unidentified corpse, the case was rapidly spinning out of control. He and the team badly needed a full briefing meeting on the whole case, but with Sullivan and Ident still out at the scene and with Gibbs tracing valuable leads, there was no time for one. The media would not sit on the details of a second woman’s death for more than a couple of hours before they flooded the airwaves with hysterical warnings about the perils of Ottawa’s city parks. Barbara Devine would be screaming for damage control.
Green, however, did not see these deaths as evidence of a city overrun with random sexual crime, but rather as the determined efforts of a killer trying to cover his tracks. It had all started with Lea’s death. No, with the sale of the lethal drugs that had precipitated her death. He jotted down the multiple lines of inquiry being pursued from that point.