Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (235 page)

“You got nothing on me, or you’d be charging me.”

“Patience, Nadif. Forensics takes time. Let’s start with the original murder. We just got the results back today on the old man’s cane. We have blood on the tip and fingerprints on the shaft.” He added Ident’s enlarged photos of the cane to the line-up. “But we know you didn’t act alone. We know your friends Yusuf and Omar were involved. With your previous record and your age, you’re facing the most serious prison time, but if you cooperate—”

“I’m not ratting!”

“If you cooperate first, that’s going to show the judge you’re remorseful. I know this didn’t start off as a murder, Nadif. I know you just wanted to get laid, but she turned you down. Who knows why, that’s what she was there for, right? Maybe it was because she didn’t want a foursome, or because you were black. Whatever, she told you to get lost, and things got ugly. When the old man Rosenthal showed up, they got out of control. He was fighting you, you grabbed his cane to stop him, you hit him back...”

Surprise and fear flitted across Nadif’s face as the scenario unfolded. Finally he burst in to stop the barrage. “Like I said, it wasn’t me. You got me mixed up with some other black dude.”

Green shrugged. “And like I said, I’m just giving you the first chance to cooperate, because you’re in the deepest. Do you think your buddies down the hall will keep you out of it? Or Yusuf? How about Omar Adams? Omar’s scared to death, you know he’s never been in trouble before. How long before he cracks and tells us the whole story? Only he’s going to paint himself in the best light. He’s going to say it was your idea to proposition the hooker, you who got mad and grabbed her—”

“We didn’t proposition no hooker! We didn’t lay a finger on her!”

“But you saw her. You talked to her.”

Nadif whipped his head back and forth.

“We have a witness who heard her telling you to leave her alone.”

The young man was staring at the bloody photo of Rosenthal as if mesmerized. “This is fucked.”

“What’s fucked?”

“It didn’t go down like that.”

“Then how did it go down?”

Resolutely, Nadif said nothing.

Green shuffled the photos. “This is your chance, Nadif. Because the others are going to say it was you who grabbed the old man’s cane, you who smashed him over the head—”

“That wasn’t me, that was fucking Omar!”

The words reverberated around the room. Nadif froze. Green leaned and tapped the close-up of Rosenthal’s head. “Omar did this?”

A convulsive swallow. “He went berserk! He smashed the guy till he went down.”

“And what did the rest of you do?”

“Nothing.”

“The man’s head was a pulp, Nadif. A cane can’t do that.”

“We didn’t do nothing! Maybe Yusuf landed a couple of kicks, I don’t remember. But we didn’t kill him. He didn’t—” Nadif stabbed at the close-up, his lips trembling, “he didn’t look like that.”

“So when did you steal his stuff? Before or after you kicked his head in?”

Nadif said nothing. His eyes were wide as he stared at the close-up.

“Come on, you took his shoes.”

“Omar took his watch!”

“We found no watch in our search of his house.”

“Then he got rid of it. But he yanked it off his wrist. The dude was batshit crazy, I tell you!”

“But after Rosenthal was down on the ground, you took off his shoes and his rings. Stole the sleeping bag off a homeless man—”

Nadif jerked back as if slapped. “What?”

“He was wrapped in a sleeping bag.”

“We didn’t do that!” The young man whipped his head back and forth. “Something’s fucked here. That picture ain’t right. He must have crawled over there, because we didn’t leave him there.”

“But you did beat him up, steal his shoes, watch, rings, and the chain around his neck.”

“Omar ripped that off. Called the guy a fucking Jew.” Nadif held up his hand. “I got nothing against Jews, but like I said, Omar was apeshit. Started whacking away at the guy. Freaked himself right out and took off like a cannonball after that.” Too late, Nadif froze.

The words hung in the air. Green leaned in. “Let me get this straight. Omar took off before the rest of you did?”

Nadif shrugged, as if it were a minor detail.

“What was the woman doing all this time?”

“Nothing. I think she took off. She got us into this fucking mess, and then she takes off.”

“But you knew she was a witness. You knew she could finger you. That’s why you went to her house.”

“Like I said, I think she ran off when the trouble started.”

“But you had to be sure, so you went looking for her.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“Come on, Nadif, things are closing in on you. The hooker has been identified, and you knew it was a matter of time before Omar cracked. That’s why you went looking for him this morning.”

“He’s my friend!”

“And when he ran away, you chased him.”

“He’s my friend,” Nadif repeated. “I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Uh-huh. To make sure he kept his mouth shut about the hooker.”

Nadif shrugged. He was sitting with his arms crossed, half turned from the table as if avoiding the sight of the photos laid out on it.

“And when you couldn’t get to him, you went after her.” He laid out some preliminary photos that Ident had taken of fibres, fingerprints and blood stains in the O’Malley house, including one on the frame of the French patio door. “Forensics is going to place you at the scene, Nadif. The poor woman was killed in her own bedroom.”

“I didn’t do that. Maybe we did beat the old guy up a bit, defending ourselves, but—” He pointed to the old man’s battered body. “I didn’t do that either.” He sat back, his eyes shut and his arms falling limp at his sides. Green recognized defeat. He leaned in.

“If you didn’t, then save yourself. Tell me what did happen with the old man.”

Nadif sighed. He wagged his head slowly. When he finally spoke, his voice was a monotone. “He had it coming. He was the one hassling that bitch. We just went in to help, and he turned on us. When he went down, we stole a couple of things off him, and we took off. He was alive. Moaning, even. But who was going to believe us, eh? Four black homeys up against some fancy old Jewish doctor with a cane? Who’s going to believe he’d go after a whore? I knew we didn’t kill him, but you guys were busy stacking the deck, so I figured we had to find her. See if she knew what happened. That’s why we were at her house. We went in the back way, because who’s gonna let four black dudes in if we ring the bell all polite like. We thought there was nobody home, but the dog was going ballistic, and we were afraid it might bite us. Lucky it was stuck in the bathroom. We were checking out the place—”

“Lots of nice stuff to steal?”

He flicked his gaze at Green but didn’t deny it. Instead he gripped the table as if to steady himself. “We were just looking around, to make sure she wasn’t asleep, like, and we opened the door and went in the bedroom. She was already there, on the floor.” He stabbed his finger on the photograph. “Just like that.”

“Already dead?”

He shook his head sharply. “Don’t know. Just then the doorbell rang, and one of the guys said ‘Cops’, and we knew we had to get out of there. I mean...” He opened his large, dark eyes wide and stared at Green. “Were you going to believe us? That we walked in and the lady’s already dead, and some other killer is walking around out there holding all the cards?”

Green held his gaze for a good ten seconds. Was this a premiere performance, or the truth?

“Who, Nadif?”

Nadif shrugged. “If I knew, I’d be giving him to you, wrapped up in a bow.”

“The night you beat up Rosenthal, did you see anyone else around?”

“Just an old drunk down the street, but he was passed out cold.”

“What about today, when you arrived at the O’Malley house? Did you see anyone around?”

“We came in the back, over the fence. The place was dead.” Nadif ’s jaw twitched in a grimace. “Quiet.”

“Any vehicles?”

“Nothing. I don’t know, man! Maybe Omar came back to finish him off. Like I said, I saw a whole new side of him last Saturday night. Who knows what he’d do?”

Levesque had lost much of her colour by the time they had wrapped up Nadif ’s interview and returned him to the cellblock. While Green remained at the interview table, sorting through impressions, she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Do you believe him, sir?”

Green turned the question over in his mind. Nadif was a self-serving liar, manipulator and thug. There was no reason to believe him other than a niggle of doubt in Green’s gut. If Nadif had really wanted to put police off his scent and lend substance to his lie, he would have invented a mystery third suspect—someone hanging around in the shadows while Rosenthal was being attacked, or some indefinable vehicle cruising slowly past the scene.

But if not Nadif, then who? Green’s thoughts roamed afield to other plausible suspects. Omar, who had Nadif ’s vote, was certainly high on the list, but even Nadif had let slip that he fled before the rest of them. According to Omar’s father, he was still running when he reached home that night. Furthermore, he was so impaired that he was barely upright.

Green returned to the few inconsistencies that had surfaced in Nadif ’s testimony. If he was to be believed, after the initial assault, someone else had taken the time to beat Rosenthal as he lay moaning and drag him into the lee of a building to conceal him from the street. That person also had the presence of mind to steal Screech’s sleeping bag and wrap the body to further delay its discovery.

Hardly the actions of a drunk, freaked out youth.

Yet if there was a third suspect, what would have been the motive for such a crime? Not self-defence or robbery or flash rage. This was a calculated assault on a helpless man. Someone had wanted him dead.

Green shook his head impatiently. What were the chances of the real killer stumbling upon the mugging and seizing the opportunity to finish the job? That required a ludicrous stroke of luck. How would the killer have known that Rosenthal would be on Rideau Street at that unlikely hour? How would he have known that Rosenthal would get into a dispute with a bunch of punks out for sport?

Green pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to force his thoughts into focus. He needed a coffee. He needed Sullivan, who would have listened to his wild speculations and patiently brought the facts into line. Levesque, exhausted and physically brutalized, was no substitute.

In his scramble to keep up with the unfolding case, Green could think of only two ways that his unlikely “third suspect” scenario could work. Either the real killer had been lying in wait on Rideau Street waiting to ambush him, or he had followed Rosenthal from his house, looking for the chance to strike unseen and disappear without a trace. Either scenario relied heavily on pure serendipity. In the first, how would the killer even know Rosenthal would show up on Rideau Street at that time and place? The second was more plausible, although the killer could not have known that the four punks would make his task so much easier.

The obvious suspect was David Rosenthal. His whereabouts at the time of the murder were still unknown. Furthermore, his behaviour had been very odd. He had tried to remove papers from his father’s house even before touching base with the police about his father’s death, he had become incensed when he’d learned he wasn’t inheriting a penny, and most ominously he’d tried to contact Caitlin O’Malley, the one witness who might be able to identify him.

Abruptly Green shoved his chair back and stood up. “We need to check what Sue Peters and Bob have managed to dig up on David Rosenthal.”

Levesque didn’t move, beyond opening one eye. Green softened. “You’re going to hospital. I’ll get one of the guys to take you.”

She shook her head gingerly, wincing at the pain. “Everyone’s busy. I just need a little sleep. I’ll join you in fifteen minutes.”

He eyed her uneasily. Concussion was a tricky injury, invisible and often undetectable. Sleep was unwise. But before he could overrule her, she said, “I’m not going to sit in the
ER
for ten hours waiting to see some med student and catching every bug going around. Not when I can spend that time on the case.”

He didn’t argue further but left her with the silent vow to check on her in ten minutes. Any sign of wooziness or slurring, and she would be off by ambulance. Back in the squad room he found Peters and Gibbs bent over their computers.

“Any news on the searches?”

Both heads shook in unison. Omar, Caitlin and Patrick had all dropped out of sight. Patrick’s known friends and associates had all been contacted, to no avail.

“What have you learned about David Rosenthal?”

Gibbs’ eyes lit. He spun away from his computer and groped through the stack of print-outs and post-its on his desk. “Lots! Customs has him entering Canada on Sept. 23 through Pearson International...”

Green did a quick calculation and his hopes fell. “That’s three days after his father’s murder. Shortly after we contacted the
FBI
.”

“Yes, sir. But he could have entered the country earlier at one of the smaller road crossings, and it didn’t get in the system.”

Green looked dubious. “And what? He went back out again to make an official entry?”

“Yessir.” Gibbs pawed through paper and flourished the one he wanted. “Because it looks like he’s broke. He lost millions in the global collapse last year when companies cancelled contracts. He makes cutting-edge prosthetics for injured soldiers, and he had invested up the yingyang to develop them. He’s been selling off personal assets to keep the core of his company alive. Three houses so far.”

So Dr. David Rosenthal certainly had motive, Green thought, even though his opportunity was questionable. “Have we found him yet?”

“No. We do know he’s been to the morgue and arranged for his father’s funeral. It’s tomorrow, out at the Jewish cemetery. But he hasn’t been at his hotel whenever we checked.”

Green thought of the dozens of officers already deployed in the searches. One more demand, and the duty inspector would have a heart attack. “Put surveillance on the hotel,” he said. “We need to contain this guy. As long as there may still be a killer on the loose, Caitlin and even Omar are in danger. No leads at all on their whereabouts? Friends? Obscure hotels?”