Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (220 page)

He shook his head. “She was waiting to view a photo lineup Brian was bringing over.”

“Why was he in his own vehicle on police business?”

Green caught his breath. His frazzled mind raced over all the possible complications of using a personal vehicle on duty. The damage to Sullivan’s beloved new truck likely wouldn’t be covered by his insurance, but was there anything else? Any other liability Sullivan would face if the girl’s family sued?

“I believe he was going straight home afterwards. He...” Green’s throat closed unexpectedly. “He said he was tired.”

The glass door slammed open with a whoosh behind them and Mary Sullivan stormed out, all fear and fury. She was immaculately dressed in the power suit and suede overcoat of a successful real estate agent, but her carrot-red hair stood straight up as if she had been pulling it, and her mascara had streaked down her cheeks. Her face grew crimson at the sight of him.

He reached out. “Mary, I—”

She slashed his arms away. “Goddamn you, Mike. Goddamn you! He was afraid to tell you. Afraid to disappoint you! And now look!”

He opened his mouth to ask her “tell me what?”, but Jules’ quiet voice cut him off.

“How is he?”

Caught off guard, Mary flicked a glance at Jules before slamming Green again with her rage. “He’s alive. Maybe. But he’s probably lost fifteen per cent of his heart function and God knows how much of his brain. He’s in a coma because this job bled the life out of him, and
you
let it happen. No, you demanded it. You know what? No more. Whatever is left of him—if he ever wakes up—he’s mine!”

Fourteen

Ablack, moonless night had fallen by the time Green could stand the wait no longer. He’d never been good at hospitals, with their grim portent of death. Medical updates kept drifting in, but the essentials remained the same. His best friend hung between life and death, his recovery far from assured. He might never again be the man Green had known, the man who listened to his wild flights into zebra land with a bemused smile, only to gently, patiently remind him of the facts. The man who understood his passion for justice and his determination to beat the bad guys. The man who’d been content to let him lead but who had always watched his back.

The man who’d forgiven him a hundred times in their years together. This time, for his worst transgression of all, there might never be that chance.

Green walked the streets blindly, unable and unwilling to think. Memories of the crash kept sweeping through him— the raw shriek of metal, the stench of burning rubber, the taste of dread in his throat. And Mary lashing out in rage and pain. “You demanded it!”

On his belt he felt his cellphone vibrate and he snatched it up, terrified of news. Private caller, the
ID
said. Cautiously he answered.

“Mike? I just heard on the news! Where are you?”

Sharon’s voice. Relief flooded through him. “Just outside the hospital, taking a break.”

“How’s Brian?

Green filled her in, clipped and professional, in his best cop’s voice.

Sharon was silent a moment. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m... I’m...” His throat closed.

“I’m going to ask to sign out early. It’s pretty quiet here now. I’ll get someone else to do my rounds.”

He didn’t protest. He raised his head to look westward down the quiet residential street. She was there, less than a kilometre away. He wanted to rush to her. Never go back inside, never face the grim faces of the nurses and the reproachful faces of his colleagues. He had a reputation for driving his officers hard.

He tried to sound solicitous of her safety. “I’m on Ruskin Avenue. Walk straight along it and I’ll meet you.”

The traffic along the narrow residential streets was still heavy as hospital visitors came and went, and the headlights cast the landscape in harsh, constantly shifting shadows. He saw her first as a tiny figure backlit by an approaching car, and he quickened his pace. When they met, she said nothing. She merely reached up to wrap him in her arms. He pressed her to him.

“Brian’s a strong man,” she said eventually. “The doctors always give the worst case scenario.”

He pulled away. “He was down a long time. I’ve been replaying the scene. I think he lost consciousness and slumped forward on the horn. That horn was sounding for at least fifteen seconds before he hit my car. Another minute or two for us to reach the truck and realize what was wrong. Two minutes to pull him out of the truck—”

“Time always slows down when you’re dealing with a crisis. It probably wasn’t that long.”

He shook his head. “Ambulance response time from 911 call to arrival was five minutes. That much we do know. And we know his heart stopped several times en route to the hospital.”

“But he was getting
CPR
,” she said. “And he’s alive. That’s already a huge plus in cardiac arrest cases.”

“But for what? To be an invalid? A vegetable?”

She slipped her arm through his as they walked down the street. “We don’t know that. Let’s hope.”

“And if he wakes up, he’s going to know he killed a twenty-year-old girl. He has to live with that.”

“I know, and that’s tragic. Poor girl. But it was an accident, hardly his fault.”

Green gazed up through the tall, brooding trees into the sky. Pinpoints of starlight showered the inky expanse. So far away. Some long dead. “I think he may have known he was in trouble,” he began slowly. “Mary said he was afraid to tell me. She didn’t say what, but maybe he knew he wasn’t well.” He shook his head impatiently. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Because of us, that girl is dead. She was an innocent kid just trying to help the investigation. I put her in harm’s way, and Brian killed her. We can’t either of us escape—” He broke off. Took a deep, ragged breath.

Sharon stopped him and drew him to a nearby bench on the edge of the hospital grounds. She took his hands in hers. She said nothing, but he felt his defences slowly crumble. He wanted to flee, to scream, to drive a knife into his insides to gut out the pain.

“Brian came because I insisted. He knew there was something wrong, but he pushed his limits because I insisted. He had that heart attack because I—”

“He would have had that heart attack anyway, honey. Maybe when he was driving 100k an hour on the Queensway, taking a bunch of other innocent drivers with him.”

“But this was an innocent girl who was there because I put her there. She didn’t even want to stay, because she was late for class, but once again, I insisted.”

She scrutinized him in the darkness for a moment, then sighed. “This was in connection to the Rosenthal case?”

He nodded. “She was going to
ID
a young woman who had regular visits with Rosenthal. Brian was bringing a photo line-up to show her. Because, damn it, I couldn’t wait till tomorrow. Levesque is all set to railroad the Somali kid, and I was determined to find out who this mystery woman was and what she had to do with the murder.”

Sharon pulled back, her gaze probing. “What did she look like?”

“I don’t know. Another stupid thing. I didn’t even get a decent description from Lindsay, only that she thought the woman was young and a prostitute. I’ve been out of the trenches for so long, I don’t even follow basic procedures!”

“What makes you think the woman has anything to do with Rosenthal’s death?”

“Nothing specific. It’s just a coincidence that has to be clarified. The woman apparently visited Rosenthal at his apartment most Saturday nights. We don’t know if it was for sex or—”

“He was pretty old.”

Green shot her a glance but squelched a protest. “He’d also been known to try to help people. One of my street sources says he kept an eye on the street kids. Anyway, for whatever reason, this woman was a regular visitor, but the night he died, she didn’t show. But a sex trade worker was seen on video close to the scene.”

Sharon shivered and rubbed her arms. The night wind had picked up. “Do you have the photos from Brian’s line-up?”

He was jolted. “Probably still in the truck. When we hauled him out of the truck, he had nothing with him.” He swung on her, energized. “The truck was towed to our forensic bays, waiting for the Special Investigations team to take a look at it. We should get the photos out of it. They’re crucial to the Rosenthal case.”

“Are there other people who can identify this mystery woman?”

“Maybe others in the apartment building. It’s worth showing the line-up to them.”

To his surprise, she stood up. “How far are these forensic bays?”

“Down at headquarters.”

“We’ll take my car. I’ll drive.”

He flexed his bandaged hands. “No, I can—”

“You’re in shock, Mike. I’ll drive.”

“But what about Tony? Hannah?”

“Hannah is more than capable.” Sharon was heading down the street when she turned and slipped her arm through his to pull him along. “Come on, Mike. This is one way I can share the burden a bit with you.”

He felt his steps quicken. It would fill the long, agonizing hours of waiting, and it would give him a much-needed focus. It would ensure that what Lindsay started did not die with her, and give him something to report to Sullivan when he finally woke up.

“Oh my God.” Sharon breathed the words with awe. They were standing inside the first forensic bay in front of what was left of Green’s beige Impala staff car. It was still sitting on the flatbed tow truck, awaiting the first of the forensic collision specialists. Involuntarily she reached over to clutch his arm. “You could have been in there.”

Amid the despair and self-recrimination of the past six hours, that thought had never occurred to him. His reaction now surprised him. If only he had been, instead of Lindsay Corsin.

“It’s hard to be comforted when a young woman is dead and a rookie patrolman faces months of rehab.”

“How is he?”

The ambulance had taken the young man to a different hospital, but his partner had been phoning in with regular updates. “Broken bones, ruptured spleen, concussion. Not to mention every inch of his body is in pain from the impact.” He studied the jagged hunk of metal in the brilliant light of the overhead beams. The truck had hit the rear right corner, and its higher bumper had ridden right up over the trunk, crushing the rear and side windows. The vehicle parked in front of the Impala had blocked its forward momentum, causing it to crumple like an accordion.

Sitting on the right side, Lindsay hadn’t stood a chance, as the relentless bumper, having demolished the trunk and the seat back, zeroed in on her skull. Sullivan must never see this, Green thought.

The duty officer was standing at their side with the sign-in log in his hand. He shook his head. “Hell of a mess. I see it all the time when these supersized pick-ups and
SUV
s hit passenger cars. Even worse with the tractor trailers, of course. We’d have been scraping her up off the pavement.”

Green gave him a sharp look before turning to look at the pick-up in the next bay. Sullivan’s new pride and joy, intended to carry him not only out to deer hunting camp but well into his retirement years as well. It had sustained almost no damage beyond the shattered windows and the crumpled grill, but Green doubted Sullivan would ever be able to look at it again. He could still see the bloody threads of his jacket caught on the glass shards of the driver’s window.

Sharon was still holding his arm and her grip tightened. “You pulled him out through there?”

It looked impossible, yet he barely remembered the strain, only the desperation. And something else. David Rosenthal hammering Sullivan’s chest with a sharp blow, a risky move that can do more harm than good at the hands of a novice. Not for the first time, Green wondered what would have happened to Sullivan if Rosenthal hadn’t been there.

He shivered and strode briskly up to the cab of the pick-up. He peered inside and there, strewn across the floor of the passenger side was a sheaf of papers. He was about to grasp the passenger side handle when his years of training kicked in.

“Has Ident been here to photograph all this?”

The duty officer shook his head. “Tomorrow, they said. They’re still at the scene.”

Green remembered the pair of them consulting with the collision investigators and fanning out over the scene. They had videoed and photographed every inch of the crash site, including the truck, from every angle, inside and out. That ought to be enough. He grappled with the handle in his bandaged hands and began to search through the papers, lifting the edges carefully so as not to disturb the array of photos.

It was a good line-up. They were all photos of young women in partial profile, most of them stock photos from police archives doctored to appear amateurish. Only one did he recognize—the grainy photo of the hooker from the pawn shop security camera. He hesitated only a fraction of a second before scooping the photos back into their folder and taking them all out of the truck. It went against all procedure, but he was the boss of this whole section; he didn’t have to seek permission.

Sharon had been pressing in, peering over his shoulder. Now as he straightened up, she looked at him expectantly. “How do the photos look?”

“It might be hard to identify the woman, but it’s worth a try.” He signed the duty officer’s log and headed out of the garage.”

Sharon scrambled to follow him. “What now?”

He glanced at his watch. Nine thirty. “Now’s as good a time as ever. Maybe I can catch some of the other tenants at home.” He glanced at her. “If you want to go home, my own car is right over there. I should be able to drive.”

She was eyeing the folder with alarm, as if she were worried about his obsessive state. But paradoxically, he felt better than he had since the accident. He had something to do. But she shook her head as she opened the driver’s door. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re post-traumatic, and whether you know it or not, your judgement is impaired.”

He snorted but didn’t rise to the bait. What did she think twenty-five years on the force had taught him? Instead, he let her drive while he turned his attention to the photo. The photography tech had done a nice job of cleaning up the prostitute’s image. Green could make out a fur coat falling open over her chest and long, loose hair framing a pale, delicate face. On second inspection, she didn’t look as young as he’d thought. Her facial muscles carved valleys that gave her the apprehensive yet defiant expression of a woman who’s spent years on guard against something ill-defined and hostile.