Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (215 page)

Verne splayed his hands in a gesture of ignorance. “I have nothing more than their names and dates of birth. Not even their addresses, although I’ve set my secretary to work on that. But...” his lips worked as if he were mentally chewing over an idea, “That’s why I brought the list to your attention. They are vulnerable people who have been wronged. And even if they weren’t psychiatric patients, half a million can be a hell of a motive.”

Levesque barely seemed to be listening as Green filled her and Sullivan in on his meeting with Verne. She was too polite and savvy to defy him openly, but when she filed the list of former patients in with her case notes and assured him she would do background checks, Green sensed no urgency in her tone. She was triumphantly putting the finishing touches on her case against Omar, and the new will had no place in it at all.

Green dismissed her irritably but beckoned Sullivan to stay. “What’s Gibbs working on?” he asked. He had spotted the tech wizard bent over his computer.

Sullivan sank into the guest chair with a weary sigh. “He’s working up a case for court.”

“If anyone can dig up info on these people, it’s him.”

“You’re not convinced it’s the Somalis? Pretty strong case.”

“I know, and maybe it
is
them. But all our high-profile miscarriages of justice have occurred because the police jumped to conclusions too early. Dr. Rosenthal treated all these people and may in fact have been treating them at the time of his murder. It has to be investigated.”

“It will be, Mike.”

“But now Levesque wants to prove she’s right, and it makes her blind. Don’t give her enough rope to hang the wrong person, Brian.”

Sullivan’s face flushed red as he hauled himself to his feet. More than one person’s ego is involved here, Green thought. He watched Sullivan stop by Gibbs’s desk to speak to him briefly and to hand him a copy of the list. Gibbs glanced at it, set it aside, and continued with his work. When Green looked out at the end of the day, Gibbs had gone home, and the list was still sitting at the edge of his desk. Annoyed, Green snatched it up on his way to the elevator.

He spent the evening playing endless games of Snakes and Ladders with his son, who never liked to lose. It took three bedtime stories to mellow him sufficiently to coax him into bed. Hannah by some miracle was doing homework, and Sharon was not yet back from work. A perfect time to have a peek at the list.

When he and Sharon had been allotting rooms in the rambling old house they’d bought, there had been only two possible places for a home office. One, a damp, windowless room in the basement and the other a minuscule sunroom which the previous owner had tacked onto the back of the house. It barely accommodated a desk, a chair and a filing cabinet, but cheerful sun blazed in for most of the day. It had won hands down.

Insulation had not been a priority with the do-it-yourself builder, however, so at ten o’clock on a bracing September evening, Green could almost see his breath as he booted up his laptop. He plugged in the baseboard heater, zippered his fleece up to his neck and studied the names, debating where to start. He was no Bob Gibbs, the virtual world still being something of an alien landscape to him, but he finally settled on a quick search of 411 listings in the Ottawa area to see who among the six was still living there.

After fifteen minutes on the computer and the phone, he had found no trace of two. Four others had Ottawa-area addresses. Two of these were not definitive because the initials were too common, but it was a start. He launched a Google search of the first of the Ottawa residents, Caitlin O’Malley. Google identified dozens of Caitlin O’Malleys, among them a magician and a bride, but all lived in the United States, Ireland or New Zealand. The only promising hit was a Caitlin O’Malley who had co-authored a mathematics paper at the University of Ottawa. Hardly murderous stuff. In contrast, “Victor Ikes” yielded over a thousand hits, including a Wikipedia entry for an actor who’d been in a few B-grade independent films and one short-lived
TV
series before apparently vanishing from public view a few years ago.

Green browsed a few other fan-based entertainment sites for more information on Ikes, uncovering rumours of drug addiction, rehab, wild parties, flashes of brilliance and long black bouts of depression. There were no reports of violence, but the internet was hardly an exhaustive or even accurate source. At least this Victor Ikes had some psychiatric issues, and even more to the point, he currently lived in Ottawa.

On a hunch, Green phoned Dispatch to check the Ottawa Police internal database. If any of the six had had contact with police, even as a witness or victim, that report would be on the Records Management System. Three of the six names produced hits. A Caitlin O’Malley had been picked up once in a sweep of squeegee kids but released without charge and more recently for creating a disturbance. The responding officers had taken her to the Ottawa Hospital
ER
for a psychiatric assessment. Certainly a more promising possibility than the math whiz.

Victor Ikes’ results were even more promising; the database yielded sixteen hits covering nine separate incidents. The dispatcher rhymed them off rapidly. Victor had been the perpetrator in eight incidents and the victim in one. Green jotted down the offences—driving while impaired, creating a disturbance, uttering threats against his neighbour, assault in a bar fight... a list of petty offences that suggested a life of drugs and instability. Charges had been laid three times, resulting in guilty pleas twice, for which he’d been handed discharges conditional on seeking treatment for his problems. Perhaps the presiding judge had been a fan of B-movies.

The one victim report was a 911 call reporting a suicide attempt. Victor Ikes had been found unresponsive in his bedroom by his mother and had been transported to the Ottawa Hospital. Green put a star beside Ikes’ name. With his history of psychiatric problems and penchant for aggressive outbursts, the man certainly belonged on any credible list of suspects.

In the distance he heard the front door open and close. Modo, who’d been snoozing on top of Green’s feet, struggled to attention and lumbered out of the room. The mistress was home, relegating Green instantly to second fiddle. He listened as keys clinked in the dish on the hall table, shoes thudded against the back of the closet and the fridge door opened. He made some final notes, thanked the dispatcher and hung up just as Sharon appeared behind him with an open container of peach yogurt in her hand.

She kissed the top of his head. “Everything under control here?”

“Mmm. We had a marathon of Snakes and Ladders. Our son doesn’t handle losing well.”

“Really. I wonder where he got that from.” She peered over his shoulder at his laptop. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, now that you’re here.” He closed the laptop.

She chuckled. “You back meddling in the trenches?”

“No. Well... Just trying to speed things up. Sam Rosenthal’s murder has taken an unusual turn. It appears he left millions of dollars to former patients.”

“That was nice of him. Why?”

“Guilt, his lawyer says. He obviously thought they deserved it more than his selfish son.”

A faint frown darkened her eyes. She watched him in silence for a moment. “Don’t go off on a witch hunt, Mike.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t go assuming just because they’re patients that they’re all crazy killers. People with mental illnesses have enough struggles without fighting that myth.”

“You know me better than that,” he said, but the protest sounded feeble even to his ears. That’s exactly what he had assumed, as had Rabbi Tolner and even the lawyer Verne. After years in the trenches, he knew that the greatest evil lay among the greedy, the lazy and the just plain heartless.

Still, it paid to listen for zebras.

Canada 411 listed Victor Ikes’ address as an apartment unit on Eccles Avenue, just off Preston Street. The area was still called Little Italy, even though it had been more like Little Vietnam or Little Cambodia over the last twenty years. It was a mixed neighbourhood now, with gentrified renos and patches of exquisite garden sprouting up among the converted rooming houses and rundown cottages. More importantly, it was right on Green’s route from his home to the station. At eight o’clock in the morning, he might well wake the man up, but at least he was likely to catch him at home.

When he finally answered the buzzer, Victor Ikes looked as if he’d never actually gone to bed. He was dressed in torn, dirty jeans, a faded Tea Party sweatshirt and fluffy pink slippers. He looked slack-jawed and hollow-eyed, like a man who’d slept too little and lived too hard for the last twenty years. When Green identified himself, he scowled.

“You got a warrant?” The door started to shut.

Green stuck his foot in the opening. “I’m not here for that. I’d like to speak to you about Dr. Samuel Rosenthal.”

Ikes staggered back and reached for the door frame. “What does he want!”

Green noted the present tense. Cunning or uninformed? “When did you last see him?”

“I stopped going to that quack years ago.”

“How many years?”

“Eight? Ten? Before I moved to Toronto.”

“And you’re sure you haven’t seen him recently.”

A door opened inside, followed by a phlegmy intake of breath. Cheap floral perfume wafted through the doorway an instant before a woman appeared behind Victor, tugging a pink bathrobe across her pendulous breasts. She was built like a Sherman tank, almost six feet tall with shoulders to match. Her face looked like a botched botox job, and over-bleached hair hung in her eyes. Her feet, incongruously, were bare, perhaps to show off her bright pink, half-inch toenails. Wouldn’t want to meet those at the bottom of a cold bed, Green thought.

“Vic, don’t answer that,” she snapped, bulldozing him aside with her elbow. “The police have no business asking about your personal medical history.”

She had a faint English accent that reminded Green of
Coronation Street
. “Are you his mother?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he introduced himself and explained that he was collecting background information on Dr. Rosenthal. She had obviously read the papers, for she narrowed her eyes warily.

“We haven’t seen the man in years, good riddance, so we can’t help you.”

“I’m interested in the types of treatments he provided, not in your son personally. May I come in?”

“Why are you interested in that?”

“Because there seem to be quite a few people dissatisfied with his services.”

“And you figure one of us smashed his head in, is that it?”

Victor gasped. His hollow eyes bulged. “Dr. Sam is dead?”

Green said nothing, waiting for the mother to enlighten him. She waved a dismissive hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I caught it on the news. Didn’t want to upset you, hones.” She turned to Green. “I can tell you what you need, but I don’t want Vic upset.”

“Just a few questions,” Green said, summoning his most harmless expression.

She stepped back, muttering under her breath, and headed back inside. “At least let me get my tea.”

She didn’t offer any to Green, nor even to her son, but Green followed her into a tiny, oppressively hot living room. Blinds were drawn tight against the morning sun. The air was stale with booze, cigarette smoke, and the stench of old clothes and dishes that seemed to clutter every surface. He pushed some magazines aside so that he could squeeze into a corner of the sofa.

Victor was pacing restlessly, staring at the floor and twirling a cigarette in his fingers. “I liked him,” he said finally. “Bastard didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but at least he listened. More than I can say for the shrink I have now. Ten minutes in and out of his office, ‘eating okay, sleeping okay, no voices, good, here’s your new prescription’.”

“But at least you’re well,” his mother said, emerging from the kitchen with a cup of steaming liquid and an unlit cigarette.

“I’m not well, Mother,” Victor said. “I’m keeping a lid on. That’s different.”

Mrs. Ikes’ face hardened. She’d put on a slash of pink lipstick, most of which was now on the rim of her cup. She landed onto the sofa with a thud, nearly sending Green off the other end. “We don’t pay him to be a nice guy. That quack nearly cost my son his life.”

Victor’s pacing increased. “Sometimes this so-called life hardly feels worth saving. Dr. Sam gave me hope, he made me feel worthwhile and energized, not like some chemical reject with parts missing in my brain.”

“He should have known better. He was supposed to be a trained specialist in diseases of the mind, not a guru with some half-baked theory from Tibet. And that’s the thing, Vic. You have a disease, no different than diabetes or high blood pressure, and you don’t talk yourself out of those. You take medication to correct the problem.” She eyed him shrewdly as he continued to pace. “Goddamn it, Vic, you went off them again, didn’t you?”

He stopped pacing. Looked trapped. “Just while I do this audition, Mum. I need that energy, that edge. The drugs kill it.”

“That edge is called mania. And you know what happens next.” She sighed and swivelled to face Green. “It took me years to undo the damage that quack did by telling him all this stuff was part of his ‘natural state’. That maybe his black days were the price to be paid for the ‘pingpong brilliance of his manic mind’, Rosenthal called it. And that he could learn to manage his excesses with fish oil and mind control. Rubbish. Victor is bipolar. His good-for-nothing father, who blew his brains out at thirty-four, was bipolar. Victor was on track to do the same thing if I hadn’t put my foot down.”

“What happened?” Green asked.

Mrs. Ikes lit the cigarette with tremulous hands and dragged the smoke deep into her lungs. Green tried not to cough as smoke curled his way. “I knew something was wrong,” she said, puffs of smoke escaping with every word. “I could see the swings—the drug binges, the wild parties for days on end, then the weeks he couldn’t get out of bed. But I was only his mum. My opinion didn’t count. Vic was an adult, Rosenthal said, and he could make his own decisions. Rosenthal wouldn’t even talk to me, wouldn’t return my phone calls. Patient confidentiality, he said.”