Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (229 page)

“How are you holding up, Mary?”

“He’s had a bad day, thanks to you.”

“I know.” He sat down opposite her. “He would have heard it on
TV
anyway. I’m glad I was there, to give some perspective.”

“We wanted forty-eight hours, Mike. So his heart wouldn’t go haywire.”

“Did it?”

Her lips drew tight. “No. We were lucky, if you can call it that.”

“He’s a strong man,Mary. He’s survived this,he came out of the coma without any obvious damage, his heart is hanging in—”

“But he’ll never be the same.” She threw off her blanket and leaned forward. “Whatever you do, let him make the decisions he has to about his future. This is not about you this time, Mike. So you just step out of the way. Be a friend. If you know how.”

He told himself it was Mary’s fear talking. She had nearly lost her husband, and now she was fighting tooth and nail to keep him safe. But her words were still smarting when he arrived home to be greeted by an exuberant four-year-old, a large dog wagging her tail shyly, and a teenage daughter all dressed up and ready to go out the door.

Hannah stiffened when he wrapped her in his arms, but she was too startled to protest. He kissed her head as he pressed her close. She had cost him many sleepless nights, but slowly an intelligent, self-sufficient young woman was emerging. Considering the parent-child minefield of broken lives and hopes, he was incredibly lucky to have her.

“It’s been a really rough couple of days,” he said when he could trust himself. “Thank you for helping out. And for being you.”

She twisted away to peer at him dubiously. The black eyeliner was back tonight, but not the death’s door make-up. “It’s okay, Mike. Do you need me tonight?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “I could use the company,” but instead he shook his head. Ruffled his son’s dark hair. “No, we’ll manage. Go have a good time.”

She paused on the threshold, and he wondered if there was a hint of reluctance in her parting. Had he made a mistake in sending her away?

More likely wishful thinking, he decided as he fetched Modo’s leash and Tony’s jacket, and the three of them set off for a walk. The rain had blown over, leaving another starlit night with a threat of frost. Tony held his hand and skipped along the sidewalk, chattering about the Nintendo Wii his friend had just received for his birthday and reminding Green that his own birthday was less than two months away. Four years old, and already the gaming culture had its hold.

Avoiding Snakes and Ladders this time, father and son spent the evening building an elaborate space station from the hundreds of lego pieces that littered the living room floor. Throughout it all and the bedtime stories that followed, Green kept half an ear tuned for his cellphone, hoping for news that Caitlin O’Malley had been found. By midnight, he figured the prostitution street scene should be at its height, and he struggled to stay awake. Modo was snoozing at his feet, and
The Daily Show
was blaring from the
TV
when Sharon arrived home. She kicked off her shoes and peered into the living room, smiling in surprise.

“You’re still awake!”

“I’m waiting for some news from Patrol.” He muted the television. Stifling a yawn, he ambled stiffly over to kiss her.

She seemed distracted. “Why?”

He returned to sink back on the sofa with a sigh. “We’ve identified that woman in the photo you saw last night, but we haven’t found her. I have Uniforms out scouring known prostitution areas.”

“So she is a prostitute.”

He shook his head. “She’s actually a math PhD, but she’s mentally ill. She turns to prostitution sometimes when she’s on the street.”

Sharon slowly uncoiled her scarf from her neck. “Did you check her home?”

“Her parents haven’t seen her. That’s not unusual, according to the mother.”

She hung up her scarf and jacket. “Is it so urgent? I mean that you have an
APB
out on her?”

“Someone else is apparently looking for her too. It may be the killer looking to eliminate a witness. We need to find her first.”

Sharon said nothing as she disappeared into the kitchen. He checked his phone yet again to make sure the battery was still charged. She reappeared with a dish of ice cream and a glass of red wine. “Want some?”

He shook his head. “My mind is fried as it is.”

She sat down beside him and ate a spoonful of ice cream. She looked worried, and he brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “Hard shift?”

“I’ve been wondering whether to tell you this. It’s kind of unethical—well, no, it
is
unethical. That woman’s name, is it Caitlin O’Malley?”

He swung on her, eyes wide. “You know her?”

“She was admitted to Six North this week. She’s the one I mentioned to you, who came in through emergency, off her meds and extremely agitated.”

He sat up excitedly and reached for his phone. “I should call the hospital to put some protection on her.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “No, Mike. Wait.”

“I won’t say you told me, honey. In fact I’ll get Levesque to make the call. But bottom line, I don’t want anyone getting to her.”

Sharon had been shaking her head impatiently. “She’s gone. She was discharged this afternoon.”

He was flabbergasted. “After less than a week?”

“The nurses were equally appalled, believe me, but her father assured us he could take care of her.”

“Her father!”

She nodded. “He came and signed her out this afternoon.”

“What time?”

“Just before my shift. About two thirty.”

Green’s mind raced over the time line. That was before his encounter with Caitlin O’Malley’s mother. Either the woman didn’t know what her husband had done and they hadn’t arrived home yet, or she’d been lying through her teeth.

Whichever the case, the parents had some explaining to do. More than six hours had elapsed since his conversation with Mrs. O’Malley. Six hours for Patrick to arrive home with Caitlin, six hours for them to settle her in and take stock. Mrs. O’Malley had Green’s phone number and knew damn well that he was waiting for news on Caitlin’s whereabouts.

He reached for his phone again and this time dialled the official surveillance unit. These guys knew how to be inconspicuous. No suits, no late-model, spit-polished Impalas. They would pick a vehicle to blend in.

The sergeant on duty sounded harried. Saturday night was a busy one in surveillance.

“Have you got bodies you can spare?”

“Life or death?” the sergeant grumbled.

Green chuckled. “Maybe. I want unmarked surveillance on Patrick O’Malley’s house on Rothwell Drive, and I want a notation of every single movement inside the house, upstairs and down.”

Twenty-Two

For the second day in a row, Green was up at seven a.m., this time dragging himself downstairs and fumbling around the kitchen to brew sufficient caffeine to sustain him. His dreams had once again been tortured by visions of the crash, of Lindsay’s crushed body and Sullivan’s grey face. He forced them aside with an effort and slumped at the table with a huge mug of French roast in his hand, trying to sort out the priorities of the morning. Despite his worries about Sullivan and the young patrolman, and his concern for Lindsay Corsin’s family, he realized, once enough caffeine had penetrated his neurons, that safety of the public came first. He phoned downtown to get an update on the surveillance of Caitlin O’Malley’s house.

There was not much news. The surveillance team reported that the lights were out when they arrived, and although they had come on briefly in a downstairs room at 2:36, 3:20 and 4:57 a.m., no one had entered or left the premises all night.

Someone had a restless night, Green thought, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances. Through the sheer curtains, the surveillance team had been able to establish the movement of at least two people inside, but not three. The team also reported one vehicle visible in the driveway—a
BMW
sports car registered to Patrick O’Malley. The garage doors were closed, however, and Green knew the Lexus was probably inside. The Motor Vehicle Licensing Bureau listed a third vehicle in the family, this one a Lincoln Town car registered to the law firm of O’Malley, Hendrickson and Potts. Without a search warrant or a clandestine peek, however, there was no way to determine whether it was also in the garage.

Green sipped his coffee, considering the facts. The vehicles were in exactly the same configuration as yesterday. The surveillance team had seen no usual activity at the house, other than evidence that someone had been awake a few times. Furthermore, they had seen only two people, not three. Was Caitlin even there?

Abruptly, another sinister possibility jumped into his mind. What if Caitlin had not left the hospital with her father after all? Someone else had been looking for her yesterday, someone who was tall and drove a dark green sedan.

On impulse, he looked up the O’Malley phone number and dialled. The phone rang four times before switching to voicemail. Green listened to a man’s clipped, authoritative voice and left a message asking them to call him immediately. Afterwards he hung up, feeling queasy. He needed to know if Caitlin was safe. If the O’Malleys refused to cooperate, another search warrant would be needed to confirm that Caitlin was being sequestered there. No judge—no matter how police-friendly—would take on O’Malley, Hendrickson and Potts without considerably more ammunition.

Sharon came into the kitchen, poured herself some coffee and tossed the morning
Citizen
on the table. “Caitlin’s front page news.”

Green snatched up the paper. There, above the fold on the first page, was the fuzzy video photo along with the caption “Police seek woman as possible witness to slaying”. The article itself, short on facts but long on speculation, included the hint that the woman was a known prostitute hiding from gang members implicated in the murder. “Caitlin O’Malley, only child of prominent Rothwell Heights attorney Patrick O’Malley, is a troubled woman grappling with health issues,” the article said.

“Who gave them this shit!” Green exclaimed, thrusting the paper aside in alarm. It was an empty question. Like cops, reporters had their own network of informants on the street. Now, because of their hunger for headlines, not only did the actual killer know there was a potential eyewitness to the killing, but he had her name and picture, along with a fairly good lead on her location.

“The man who picked up Caitlin yesterday—are the nurses sure it was her father?”

Sharon frowned at him, puzzled. “Well, I wasn’t there but—”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know, Mike, but surely...” Sharon’s eyes widened. “You think someone else took her? But—but Caitlin’s father is well known. He visited every day, and he’s a prominent lawyer in town. Who would be brazen enough to pull that off?”

“I don’t know if anyone did. I just can’t confirm she’s at home right now.”

“But why would she go off with a man pretending to be her father? She’s paranoid—she’d never go along with it.”

Green snatched up the phone again and dialled the Major Crimes Unit. He was lucky enough to snag Gibbs just coming in.

“Pull a photo of Patrick O’Malley off the internet and show it to the nurses who were on day shift at the Rideau Psychiatric Hospital yesterday. We need him confirmed as the man who signed Caitlin O’Malley out.”

After he’d signed off, he felt Sharon’s incredulous gaze upon him. “This is crazy. Who else could it be? It would have to be someone white and middle-aged. Your main suspects are young and black.”

“The most obvious person is David Rosenthal, the dead man’s son. He’s a completely unknown entity in this whole situation. We do know he was estranged from his father and anxious to get his hands on his money. He did not appear to know his father had changed his will, and he became outraged when he learned he was getting nothing. I think he was at the O’Malley house yesterday, looking for Caitlin.” He considered what little he knew about David Rosenthal. “He’s a man of tremendous physical strength, quite capable of beating someone to death. He’s also a man of action, used to going after what he wants. But...” Green shook his head slowly. “I didn’t get any sense of guilt or regret from him. If he’d killed his father, I’d expect some distress.”

“Unless he’s a psychopath.”

Green pondered the idea. Despite all David’s arrogance and contempt for lesser beings, Green had a secret liking for the man. Perhaps liking was too strong a word. Esteem. David had been the first on the spot to save Sullivan’s life and had stayed around to see how all the victims were faring before he dropped out of sight again. Surely those were signs of a man who cared.

Yet psychopaths made excellent heroes, because they were without fear and acted without the complex self-doubts that hampered more sensitive people. Furthermore, a display of caring would be well within the acting range of an intelligent psychopath. Perhaps Green was blinded by the man’s heroic gesture that had saved his friend’s life.

Green contacted Gibbs again, relieved to catch the young detective before he headed out to Rideau Psychiatric. “Who else is there in the squad room?”

“Just Sergeant Collins.”

Green hesitated. It would take too long to brief Collins on the background of the case and would tread too hard on Levesque’s toes. Levesque was probably still in bed sleeping off the effects of her hot date. The woman was entitled to some time free of the job.

“When you’re finished at the hospital, I want you to do some background inquiries on David Rosenthal. First I want to know exactly when he crossed the border and secondly if he has any history of violent or criminal activity in the U.S.” True psychopaths had trouble keeping their nature completely under wraps and often had a chequered history of driving violations, neighbourhood conflicts and minor disputes. The United States’ patchwork of law enforcement jurisdictions would make it a nightmare to track them down, but if anyone could, it was Gibbs.

“On Sunday, sir?”

Green knew the dismay had nothing to do with laziness. Official agencies would be on skeleton staff. “Do what you can. Oh! And check with the Rent-Me car agency to see if he exchanged a white van for a dark green sedan yesterday.”