Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (228 page)

“I’m Inspector Green, and this is my colleague Sergeant Levesque.” He made a show of glancing up at the damp sky. “Let’s speak inside my vehicle.”

“Why were you chasing me?” she demanded.

“Why were you running?” Levesque countered. Not the approach Green would have used, but he resisted the urge to glare at her.

“Because you were chasing me.”

“You didn’t answer the door,” Levesque said. “You sneaked out and took off—”

“I didn’t know you were the police!” the woman snapped. “Not until I saw your red flashing lights.”

“Who did you think we were?”

Mrs. O’Malley clamped her jaw shut. She was trembling in her thin leather coat. Green stepped in front of Levesque and took the frightened woman’s elbow. “Come, let’s talk in the car.”

This time the woman responded and allowed him to guide her into the rear of the Impala. He slipped in beside her, leaving Levesque no choice but the front seat. She twisted around and draped her arm over the seat back, scowling.

In the small confines of the car, the smell of booze was almost dizzying. Black mascara was smudged beneath her eyes, but otherwise she wore no make-up. Her brown hair, long and uncombed, showed half an inch of grey roots. Green could see the telltale web of broken capillaries in her eyes and across her cheeks. Drink had been this woman’s companion for a long time. He tried for a gentle smile. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Why were you afraid of someone coming to the door?”

“What is this—good cop, bad cop?”

“You’re not in trouble, Mrs. O’Malley. We were simply coming to your house to ask about your daughter Caitlin.”

The woman heaved a deep, defeated groan. “So you’ve identified her.”

He nodded. “We want to talk to her about an incident she may have witnessed—”

“Dr. Rosenthal’s murder.”

“Did you know him?”

She shook her head. “We saw the news clip.”

“He wasn’t one of the psychiatrists who treated your daughter over the years?”

“You make that sound like she’s a revolving door,” she snapped, then dropped her gaze to wipe a rain drop off her jacket. “Which she was. A revolving door with more advice and prescriptions than we knew what to do with.”

“Did he treat her?”

Vague apprehension flitted across her face, as if some ill-defined fear were niggling. “Not unless she saw him during one of her more outlandish stints when she wouldn’t talk to us for months on end.”

“Do you know what she was doing on Rideau Street on the night he was killed?”

She swallowed and ran her tongue around her chapped lips, as if yearning for a drink. “My daughter is a very ill woman. She has battled schizophrenia for eight years, and sometimes it makes her turn on those who care about her the most. My husband used to comb the streets for her, staying out all night. He visited the shelters and volunteered at the Shepherds of Good Hope, thinking maybe someday he’d look up from his soup pot, and there she’d be. Every time we heard of a car accident or rape or unidentified overdose, we’d be terrified.”

Green waited while the woman brushed every rain drop from her coat and scrubbed at an invisible stain. “I suppose she was...soliciting again. It paid the bills. We stopped giving her money, because she’d give it all away to every bum and addict she came across. Or she’d buy something ridiculous like a mink coat that would be stolen the next day. One of her psychiatrists explained that soliciting gives Caitlin some independence. Some power, for God’s sake. We tried everything to stop it. Community treatment orders that she ignored, fancy private hospitals in the U.S. We even had her committed to an institution for awhile, so at least she’d be cared for, but in the final analysis, we decided we had only two options. Bar her from the house and live in constant fear of a phone call from you folks or the morgue, or let her come and go on her own terms.”

“So does she live at home?”

“We still keep her room ready, but she’s more an occasional visitor. My husband still tries. He still tries to reason with her. I...” The woman pressed her eyes shut and waved a dismissive hand. “Some days I’m beyond caring any more. But it’s hard for a father to accept his little princess selling her body on the street.”

Green felt a wave of sorrow for them both. He remembered his own desperation when Hannah had been out of control, staying out all night, sleeping with God knows what pimply-faced punk, and swallowing dangerous drugs by the handful. Through perseverance, patience, and a hope he often doubted, she’d come around. However, she did not have a mind-altering illness.

“Was she at home when we called at the house just now?” Levesque asked, and Green saw the implication he’d overlooked, that perhaps the mother had fled to draw the police away from her daughter. But Mrs. O’Malley shook her head. Offered no alternative.

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“She’s not in trouble,” Green said. “If fact, if she saw something, she may be in danger.”

The woman stiffened. “Why?”

Green didn’t answer but instead took a guess. “She has been in touch, hasn’t she? Is she scared?”

He could see the woman teetering on the brink. She looked exhausted from years of battling the complexities of her daughter’s psyche.

“We only want to help her,” Levesque interjected, just as the woman began moving her lips. Mrs. O’Malley shot her a disbelieving look and pressed her lips closed. Inwardly, Green cursed.

“I don’t know where she is,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “But she would be scared. She would have seen her picture splashed all over the news, and she’d know that every police officer on every corner would be looking for her.” A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. “A paranoid’s nightmare.”

“Where would she go if she was on the run?” Green asked.

“I don’t know that she’s on the run. I just know how her mind works. She’ll think nowhere is safe. She has a thing about satellite surveillance, Google Earth, wireless signals. She thinks they’re all part of the Devil’s network, and we’re fools not to be suspicious. Sometimes she even convinces me. Besides...” She paused, doubt flickering in her bloodshot blue eyes.

“Besides what?”

“Did you guys phone this morning, looking for her?”

Green’s senses grew alert. “It wasn’t us. Who phoned?”

“I don’t know. Some man with a big, booming voice who said he was an old friend of Caitlin’s.” She grunted. “That put me on guard immediately. Caitlin doesn’t have any old friends whom she hasn’t driven away with her craziness.”

“Was there a caller
ID
?”

“It said ‘private caller’. Normally I don’t answer, but Patrick wanted to keep the line open in case—” She broke off, but Green understood. Against all rationality, you hope they’ll call.

“What time was this?”

“Eleven thirty. Just before I usually walk the dog.”

Green and Levesque exchanged glances. Eleven thirty was after the internal police bulletin had been issued but before the photo had been circulated to the media. Someone had known her name and address even before seeing the photo. Green asked Mrs. O’Malley to repeat the conversation as precisely as she could.

“Not much of a conversation. He asked if she still lived there, and when I asked who he was, he said he was an old friend who really wanted to get in touch with her, and did I know where he could reach her. I said she hadn’t been in touch for some time, but he didn’t sound as if he believed me. He said that doesn’t sound like Caitlin, which is when I knew he was lying, because it’s exactly like Caitlin. He had a loud voice and a laugh that sounded forced. I admit I was unnerved. I waited quite awhile before I took the dog out. When I came back, as I was walking up the street, I saw a car parked in front of the house. Was that one of yours?”

“What kind of car?” Green asked, his mind exploring possibilities.

“A regular car. Dark green. I’m not good with makes, but I don’t think it was out of the ordinary.”

“Did you see anyone in it?”

She nodded. “I gather that wasn’t you people? I could make out someone in the driver’s seat, but from where I was, that was all. The windows were tinted.”

“What happened next?”

“I stayed where I was. Pretended Zoë was doing her business. He stayed a couple of minutes and then he drove off really fast.”

“He?”

“It certainly looked like a man. I had a quick glimpse of him climbing into the car when I first rounded the corner. I think he may have rung the doorbell. But it was alarming how he sat there afterwards, as if he were spying.” She pressed a shaky hand to her lips. “I’ve always feared that some day one of the unsavoury characters my daughter consorts with...”

Green felt a flood of understanding. No wonder the woman had fled when he and Levesque came calling. “Did you report this to the police?”

“No, Patrick didn’t think it was worthwhile. Anyway, right after that we saw Caitlin’s photo on
TV
, and we figured that perhaps it was the police. But if it wasn’t...”

“Your husband was home at the time of this visit?”

“Yes, but he was in the backyard planting tulip bulbs, and he didn’t hear the bell.”

Green thought of the silver sports car in the drive. “Is he home now? Perhaps he saw something useful.”

She shook her head. “He went out right after we saw the story on
TV
. Probably out looking for her.” She paused, vague apprehension crossing her face again. “I think the strange visit worried him.”

Him and me both, Green thought. “Can you tell us anything at all about the man? Such as his clothes or his voice? Did he sound old or young on the phone? Did he use sophisticated language or...”

“He sounded plain. Rather like a used car salesman. Although...” She cocked her head. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but he seemed to have a very slight accent. I couldn’t tell you what kind.”

Twenty-One

The setting sun was peeking out from under the cloud cover by the time Levesque and Green had finished with Mrs. O’Malley and headed back downtown to the station. The whole sky was an eerie pink. Green spent the drive on his cellphone, trying to track down the dark green car. Neither the families of Omar Adams or Nadif Hassan owned such a car, but David Rosenthal was still a mystery. He and his white van were registered at the hotel he had given to the crash investigators, but neither had been seen all day.

Green had a bad feeling about the stranger who had come looking for Caitlin. Had the police’s own efforts to identify her on the street tipped off the killer that she might be a threat? Had the police inadvertently placed her in harm’s way? Once they arrived back at the station, he sent Levesque home to her dinner engagement while he headed straight down to speak to the duty sergeant for the Central District.

“We need to step up our efforts to find this young woman. We now have a name—Caitlin O’Malley—and a possible street name, Foxy.” He handed his colleague a new photo that Mrs. O’Malley had given him of Caitlin smiling in her graduation photo. Although not classically pretty, the young woman looked proud and full of hope. The sergeant studied the photo, his expression softening. Within minutes, he had it scanned and sent out to the in-car computers.

“You figure she’s downtown somewhere?” he asked.

“She’s probably on the run, but her mother swears they haven’t seen her or given her money, so I figure she’ll be trying to make some. The fastest means she knows is soliciting, so that’s where we should concentrate our efforts. The Byward, Vanier, maybe even as far west as Gladstone and Hintonburg.” Green stopped to consider other avenues open to them. “We should assume she knows we’re looking for her, but she doesn’t know that someone else is looking for her too. I don’t know if she’s streetwise enough to figure that out. I also don’t know how rational she is. She may be right out of her tree.”

“Dangerous?”

“Well, she is a paranoid schizophrenic, so depending on how she’s interpreting things... The mother says she’s never been violent, but maybe she’s never been this frightened before. It appears that she and Dr. Rosenthal were close. If she did witness something last Saturday night, she may have become completely unhinged.”

“Gotcha.” The sergeant reached for his computer again. “I’m going to send out special instructions to the guys to make sure they get back-up before approaching her. And to take her to Emerg if she loses it, instead of bringing her here.”

Green turned to leave. He felt bone-tired. “I want to be informed the minute you have any word.”

“What about her home? You want some surveillance on that in case she goes there?”

Green weighed the pros and cons. A car, even an unmarked one, would be so conspicuous on that quiet street that it would likely scare Caitlin off entirely. At the end of the afternoon discussion, the mother had seemed convinced of the possible danger to her daughter and of the police’s desire to help. She had his cellphone number and had promised to contact him if she had any news.

On the other hand, parents often had their own solutions.

“Do regular drive-bys, and if Patrol spots any signs of unusual activity, phone me.”

Finally, gratefully, Green headed out into the night. He stopped first at the General Hospital to visit the young patrol officer and was relieved to find him in fairly good spirits, surrounded by flowers and cards. The mood was less upbeat at the Heart Institute. Sullivan was dozing and not to be disturbed. He’d been agitated and medically unstable much of the day, prompting the doctor to order more sedation and slap a ban on visitors outside the immediate family.

“His wife’s on guard in the lounge,” said the nurse with a knowing tilt of her head towards the waiting room. “No one’s getting past her, least of all you.”

“But his health—is it improving?”

“He’s stable now. That’s good news. Beyond that, you’ll have to speak to his wife.”

Green steeled himself. He was frayed and exhausted, the adrenaline of the hunt still pumping uselessly through his veins. He doubted he had the strength for Mary’s rage, yet he owed her that. He owed Sullivan that.

She was curled in a soft-backed vinyl chair by the wall, her head propped on a pillow and a hospital blanket draped over her. She’d made no effort with her make-up or hair, leaving her vulnerability on show. She looked asleep, oblivious to the couple who chatted quietly in the opposite corner, but when Green entered the room, her eyes flew open. She stared at him, her expression cold.