Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (198 page)

“Better, that’s for sure. At least there’s no neurological or spinal damage.”

The relief in the room was palpable, and Green smiled. He could handle Devine and the media, he could even handle the Chief himself as long as Riley recovered. He nodded to Gibbs. “You all set up for the Crystal Adams interview? Make sure you find out how she and McIntyre are connected.” He slapped his head in dismay. “Speaking of McIntyre, get Jones working on a search warrant of his house. We’re looking for drugs. Right now all we have on the
putz
is a couple of driving offences, but he fits into the bigger picture somehow.”

He left Gibbs jotting eagerly into his notebook, and he was just returning to his desk to place the call to the Chief when his cell phone rang. To his surprise, it was Marija Kovacev. Her tone crashed him back to earth.

“What did you do!” she shrieked. “Why did you chase him!”

“Marija, I can’t discuss the case—”

“Yes, you can! I called you, I tell you where he is, then you trick me—”

“No, I didn’t. I was trying to help him.”

“But he may die.” Her voice rose. “Because of you. Because of me!”

“Marija, listen to me. He’s not going to die. He’s had surgery, and it’s looking very good.”

“He was so scared yesterday, and I tell him to trust you. I need to explain to him.”

“I’m sure when he’s better—”

“No, I am at the hospital now. I bring him his phone.”

“His what?” Green asked, startled.

“He forget his phone. Just like Lea’s.”

The implication did not hit Green until after she’d signed off. “Just like Lea’s,” she’d said. Lea’s phone had never been recovered in any of the searches, whereas Riley had obviously used his own phone to call Green yesterday from his car. What if this was Lea’s phone, and Riley had been trying to return it? What if there was crucial evidence on it that would help put all the pieces in place?

Green glanced at his watch. Marija had said she was already at the hospital. If he hoped to intercept her, he had no time to call the Chief’s office or fend off Barbara Devine. He was just pocketing his keys and getting ready to sneak out of the station when he spotted Sullivan climbing off the elevator. The big detective looked red-eyed and rumpled, as if he’d slept in his suit.

“Want to grab a coffee?” Sullivan asked.

“I’m trying to get out of here before they catch me,” Green said. “Come with me to see Riley O’Shaughnessy.”

“The kid will barely be conscious!”

“Maybe. But I’m very curious to hear what he has to say. And to see what’s on a cell phone he left at Marija Kovacev’s. It might be Lea’s.”

“The Chief will have your head,” Sullivan said as they accelerated out of the parking lot, but he was smiling. Outside, masses of black clouds roiled in the western sky, threatening trouble. Steering with one hand, Green reached for his cell phone and dialled the Chief ’s office. To Green’s relief, the secretary said he was in a meeting.

“I’m returning his call,” Green said, the essence of courtesy. “I’ll be out of phone range at the hospital for a while, but when would be a good time to call again?”

The secretary wasn’t falling for it. “He wants to see you, along with Superintendent Devine, in his office at eleven o’clock.”

Green glanced at his watch. That gave him little more than an hour to accomplish what he wanted at the hospital. When it came to this new chief, timing was not negotiable. He flicked on his emergency lights and stepped on the accelerator as he shot onto the Queensway.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” he grumbled. “There’s no other way we could have handled it.”

Sullivan shrugged. “The Chief’s just flexing his muscles, making sure we know who’s boss. Probably just an image exercise, so the public doesn’t think he’s running a bunch of cowboys. McIntyre’s lawyer is shooting his mouth off.”

“McIntyre’s a loose cannon, but I’ve got Jones working on a warrant, based on what I hope Crystal is going to give us. Once we seize all that stuff in his house, it should shut him up fast.”

At the hospital, Green parked right outside the main entrance and slapped a police sticker on the dash. The hospital was bustling with activity, its main corridor more like a shopping mall than a state-of-the-art teaching hospital, but when they stepped off the elevator on the surgical floor, Green instinctively recoiled. Here the beep of machines, the drone of the
PA
, and the unique smell of disinfectant and disease brought memories crashing back. He’d had too many vigils at hospital bedsides. Sue Peters, numerous assault victims, and his own mother, who’d wasted to nothing during her long, futile fight with cancer. By the end, she’d looked like the concentration camp victim she’d been forty years earlier. That cruel irony still haunted him in the dead of night.

The nursing station on the surgical floor had a broad counter and a wall of
TV
monitors which beeped and danced. Two nurses sat quietly recording, and one looked up cheerfully as they approached. The sight of their detective shields brought the head nurse running from the back room.

“How is he?” Green asked.

“Conscious and speaking, but still weak. The doctor has ordered visitors restricted to immediate family for the next two days.”

“We’d like to ask him a few questions. At least some preliminaries. In cases like this, it’s important to get the recollections early.”

She looked dubious. “I’ll have to check with the doctor, and he’s in a consultation right now. If you’d like to take a seat in the waiting room...”

The surgical care waiting room was nothing more than a cluster of plastic chairs shoved into a corner. Marija Kovacev was already there, huddled in a chair. She looked even more gaunt and ravaged than before, her cheekbones protruding and her striking blue eyes sunk deep into their sockets. There was a wildness about her, as if she were hanging on to her sanity by the smallest thread. On the table beside her sat a large vase of roses, which Green suspected she’d picked from her own garden. His heart tightened. She was reaching out to Riley as if he were an extension of her own daughter, as if keeping him alive somehow kept Lea alive.

Her weary eyes lit at the sight of Green, and she pulled herself upright. “They are not letting me visit him—family only—but I talked a long time with his father. I told him Riley visit at my house and that he was afraid. The poor man was very sad about Lea. He has been here all night. He is meeting with the doctor now. I am waiting for Riley’s nurse, to give her these flowers and his phone.”

“May I see that phone?” Green asked casually. She shot him a sharp look. “Why?” “You said it looked just like Lea’s. Maybe it
is
hers. We still haven’t found it.”

She gave a small gasp and immediately plunged her hand into her mammoth purse, rummaging frantically until she found it. She held it in her palm with reverence.

“It has Riley’s picture, that’s why I think it’s his.” She flipped it open and stared at the photo on the screen. It showed Riley laughing into the camera against a backdrop Green recognized as Hog’s Back Falls. “It looks like a lover’s picture,” she said in wonderment. “Maybe Lea took this.”

On the night she died, he suspected, and he could tell from her quivering lips that she had drawn the same conclusion. She handed the phone to Green. “I don’t understand how it is working, but are there more pictures?”

Green pressed buttons with some trepidation. What if these photos were not suitable for parental eyes? Marija had been through enough without unpleasant images to mar her thoughts of her daughter’s last night.

The photos were the usual assortment of spontaneous and silly portraits, but their content altered towards the end. Blurry, off-kilter shots of toes and treetops and park signs replaced the staged photos of themselves, and one brief video was a wild, spinning blur of park scenery. Lea high on drugs, losing control and sanity. He closed the photo menu, hoping Marija had not seen the last few.

“She’s got messages,” he said as text popped up on the screen. He scrolled down. Ten messages. Half were from Marija herself, but four had the caller
ID
Crystal Adams. “Do you know Lea’s password?”

Marija started to shake her head, then her expression cleared. “Try her father’s name. Zlatan. She often uses that.”

Green punched it in and was immediately connected to the voice mail box. Aware of Marija’s tense, expectant gaze upon him, he rose and walked to a quiet corner of the hall. Crystal’s first message, logged at five thirty on the day before Lea’s fatal outing, was brief and breezy. “Hey Lea, got your stuff! Guaranteed to be some serious weed.” The second, logged at noon on the day she died, was decidedly peculiar. “Hey Lea, are you going to party tonight? I got it specially, so don’t go giving it away.”

The third and fourth were a little more anxious. “Hey, where are you? Have you tried the stuff yet? I really want to know how it went.” The final message, logged at 10:57 on Monday evening, was the most telling. “You know what? I think you should throw the stuff away. Call me when you get this. Whatever you do, don’t give it to Riley.”

The next messages were all from Marija, frantic to know where her daughter was, unaware that by the time of her calls, Lea was already dead. Green disconnected and stood a moment reflecting on the meaning of Crystal’s words. Some things were clear. Crystal had indeed supplied the marijuana that had killed Lea, and she knew it was unusual quality, perhaps even laced. Had she known it was lethal? Was that why she warned Lea not to give it to Riley or to anyone else? But she had obviously begun to worry when she did not hear back from Lea. Had she begun to have second thoughts? Or had she begun to fear the drug was more potent than she had intended?

A lot of questions, not the least of which was—was McIntyre her supplier, and had he known the dose was lethal? Key questions that would only be answered when she came in for her interview later that day.

He walked back to join Marija and Sullivan, trying to look nonchalant. “It’s definitely Lea’s phone. Your messages are on there, plus some from her friends. I’ll need to take it in for further analysis.”

She looked apprehensive. “Will I get it back? So I can have the photos?”

He reassured her, pocketed the phone in an evidence bag and ushered her onto the elevator with a promise to deliver her flowers personally. He barely had time to fill Sullivan in on Crystal’s messages when a door slammed across the hall and a man barrelled towards them. Green caught sight of blazing eyes and purple jowls as the man stormed by towards the stairs. At the last second, he recognized Riley’s father.

“Mr. O’Shaughnessy!” he cried, seizing the man’s arm. Ted O’Shaughnessy stared right through him and wrenched his arm free without breaking his stride. Good God, Green worried as he looked down the hall towards the patients’ rooms. Is it that bad?

The door opened again, and this time a dark, rail-thin man in green surgical scrubs emerged, his black eyes troubled. He stopped short at the sight of Green and Sullivan.

“I’m Dr. Vishnu. Are you the detectives?”

Green made the introductions, hoping that the inspector label would carry some weight, but the doctor seemed unimpressed. He spoke in a clipped, unemotional tone with only the slightest hint of his native India. “I can only allow you five minutes with him, and a nurse must be in the room. Her word goes.”

“Is there anything that would affect his statement? Any neurological or memory problems?” Green asked.

“He’s been sleeping most of the time, and he’s on a fairly strong pain medication. He doesn’t remember the accident, which is quite normal, so he may not be able to help you. Don’t pressure him or challenge him.”

“Any questions we should avoid?”

“Don’t discuss whether he’ll play hockey again. He may ask you, but don’t answer. He’d need a major miracle. His right leg is pinned in three places. I was just telling his father the prognosis. I think that’s what upset him so much.” Vishnu paused as if debating the wisdom of further disclosure. “I haven’t mentioned this to Riley, but I did tell the father as well, and perhaps you should know, since it may have some bearing on the accident. We ran a routine toxicology screen when he was admitted, and it showed two elevated readings—ephedra and creatinine. Ephedrine is a metabolic stimulant found in common over-thecounter medications, but it’s often used by athletes as an energy booster. In large doses, it can cause agitation, possibly confusion. Ironically, the ephedrine may actually have been a benefit to him after the accident in keeping his heart stimulated.”

“And creatinine?”

“Elevated creatinine can have a variety of etiologies, but based on his muscle bulk and water retention, I would estimate that he was taking creatine.” Seeing Green’s blank look, he continued. “Creatine is a performance-enhancing supplement athletes use to build muscle mass. It’s not nearly as dangerous as steroids, but we don’t know much about its side effects with adolescents. Regardless, mixing substances that rev up the metabolism is never good.”

Green remembered the manic edge to Riley’s behaviour during the car chase. “You’re saying it could have a bearing on the accident?”

“Well...” Vishnu paused. “It’s not my field, but it might have increased his agitation or interfered with his judgment. Not seriously, but in a stressful situation...” He looked uncomfortable venturing beyond his expertise. “Both these drugs can easily be bought over the counter or on the internet, you understand. Neither one is illegal.”

“Not illegal, just unsportsmanlike,” muttered Sullivan once they’d thanked the doctor and were following the nurse down the hall in the ward. “So much for being a role model for our kids.”

Green was thinking of the cases of bottled sports drink in McIntyre’s closet. “Dr. Rosen’s Electro-boost”. More likely Dr. McIntyre’s private concoction, which Riley probably drank almost like water. If he had known it contained ephedrine, would he have let Lea drink it that night? “It’s possible he didn’t know.”

Sullivan shot him an incredulous look. “What kid wouldn’t know? Unless he chooses not to know.”