Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (236 page)

At a nearby work station, Sue Peters waved her hand excitedly. She was on the phone, jotting notes and nodding. As Green and Gibbs hurried over, she slammed the phone down and swivelled her chair triumphantly. “I think I found them! You remember that address where the cabbie dropped Caitlin off?”

“Montreal Road?” Green asked. “Near her home?”

“1714 Montreal Road. It’s a low-cost rental unit. I checked all the tenants, there and nearby. Nada. Students, new immigrants, single moms. The usual.”

Green’s eyes narrowed. “Who owns it?”

Peters grinned. “I thought of that, but no cigar. It’s a property development firm. But! On a Google Earth search, I saw there’s another house right beside it. 1710 Montreal Road. It’s a little post-war bungalow slated for demolition and in the middle of a zoning dispute. It’s listed as empty and water and hydro are disconnected. But guess who owns it?”

“Patrick O’Malley?”

“Bingo. And what’s more, I was just talking to one of the tenants at 1714 who remembers the last occupants. Newlyweds named Caitlin and Adrian.”

Green sucked in his breath. “Take me home,” Caitlin had told the cabbie that night, and this must have been what she meant. Not her father’s place but the home she’d shared, however briefly, with the man she’d loved. If Patrick had brought her there after her discharge from hospital, that would explain why the mother knew nothing about it.

Rapidly he considered his courses of action. Annabeth O’Malley’s name had not been released to the media, but film and camera crews were crawling over the neighbourhood, and the conclusion would be obvious; something catastrophic had happened at the O’Malley home.

If Caitlin and her father were without power, it was possible they hadn’t seen the news, but more likely Patrick O’Malley had a wireless laptop or Blackberry which would keep him plugged into the outside world. He and Caitlin had to be informed of the mother’s murder as soon as possible.

On the other hand, a cruiser at full lights and siren would be a traumatic way to learn the awful news. No matter how difficult, they deserved to hear it from the investigating officers themselves. The hideaway was so obscure that it was unlikely either Omar or David Rosenthal would be able to find them.

In the end he decided on a compromise. He asked Dispatch to send a cruiser to watch the little house quietly until he arrived. When he went to rouse Levesque, she was sleeping slumped over the table, but to his relief she became instantly alert and coherent.

“Of course I’m coming,” she said, already on her feet before he’d finished briefing her. She swayed but caught herself quickly, shaking off his helping hand with a scowl. Back in the squad room, he signalled to Gibbs. “Round up an available detective and follow us. And I want
EMT
back-up in case we need assistance. Caitlin is pretty unstable mentally.”

Sue Peters pushed herself to her feet, trying to hide her stiffness from sitting so long. “How about me?”

Green felt a pang of regret. She wasn’t cleared for field duty and would be of little help if physical restraint was required. He saw her excitement fade to defeat as he hesitated.

“Someday, Sue,” he said. “Meanwhile you hold down the fort for us here. Omar and David Rosenthal are still out there, and we need to keep on top of their searches.”

As the two staff cars headed eastward in convoy onto the Queensway, Green turned the case over in his mind with dissatisfaction. They were missing some part of the puzzle, and other pieces didn’t fit. Maybe those pieces were irrelevant and weren’t meant to fit, but he wasn’t comfortable being unable to form the whole picture. What about the break-in at Rosenthal’s apartment the week before his death? What about the theft of his laptop and personal papers? Why had Patrick O’Malley visited the scene of the murder several days later, asking about witnesses and going through garbage? Why had he suddenly whisked Caitlin from the hospital before she was well, and why had he told his wife nothing about it?

No matter how the pieces were sorted, Patrick O’Malley seemed to loom larger in the picture than Green had envisaged.

They were fast approaching the Blair Road exit ramp when his cellphone rang. Expecting an update, he pressed the “hands-free” button and was surprised when the wheezy, measured voice of George Verne filled the car. “Sorry to disturb your day off, Inspector, but I find myself in possession of another piece of information that may be relevant to your investigation. Or not. But here I’m on dubious ethical ground.
Entre nous?”

Green glanced at Levesque and laid a finger to his lips. “What is it, Mr. Verne?”

“I purchased an
Ottawa Citizen
to read with my afternoon coffee at the office, and lo and behold, I see a familiar face on the cover.”

“You know Caitlin O’Malley?”

“I do. She was never actually a client of mine in the sense of officially retaining my services, but she did consult me.”

“When was this?”

“In March of this year. The case I mentioned to you, when I first met Sam Rosenthal. He brought her to see me. He was encouraging her to explore her legal recourses against her father, who’d managed to have himself appointed her guardian. Effectively, he controlled her finances, her holdings, and her medical treatment. She was under a mandatory community treatment order to follow a medication regime, and the last time she’d defied it, her father had sent the police after her.”

Green nearly missed the Blair Road exit. He gripped the steering wheel, fighting both the car and his excitement. “So Rosenthal was treating her?”

“I don’t know about that, but he was prepared to testify on her behalf. A Consent and Capacity Review Board had turned down her appeal, and she wanted to pursue the matter in the courts.”

“To do what?”

“To have her father’s guardianship and power of attorney revoked. She was quite adamant. A very bright woman who wanted out from under her father’s thumb.”

“But you didn’t take the case?”

“In the end it didn’t proceed. Sam Rosenthal merely said later, when he came to make the new will, that it had been ill-advised. I had cautioned them that although I would be delighted to take the case, she should be prepared for an ugly, upsetting battle. Patrick O’Malley doesn’t take prisoners, and her psychiatric history was not a thing of beauty.”

Green thanked him for the information and disconnected to see Levesque already processing the implications. “So there was no love lost between Sam Rosenthal and Patrick O’Malley,” she said.

Green was already on the same track. Was it possible? Could Patrick have resorted to murder to keep Rosenthal from his daughter? It explained why Patrick had returned to the murder scene several days later, to find out if anyone had seen her and to look for telltale evidence. It explained his whisking Caitlin away from the hospital once her photo had been released. Anything to prevent the police from finding her and questioning her about Rosenthal’s murder, for given her unstable mental state and her antipathy towards him, she couldn’t be relied on to protect him. It even explained her panicked flight from the murder scene and her choice of 1714 Montreal Road instead of her father’s address. Sam Rosenthal had been her ally, and she’d been running from her father. In her confused and terrified state, she’d chosen the one place she’d ever felt safe from him.

A new and sinister fear swept over Green. If Patrick O’Malley had killed Sam Rosenthal, he was a desperate man running scared as the truth closed in. Once a successful, respected lawyer, he was now threatened with losing it all. How far would he go? He had already lied to his wife and kept Caitlin’s hospitalization a secret from her. Had he also killed her once she guessed the truth? And what would he do to his only child who, although beloved, could bring his whole world down?

“We need to get there
ASAP
,” he said, flipping on the emergency lights and stomping on the gas. “He may not be hiding her at all. He may have taken her there to kill her.”

Levesque didn’t argue, didn’t even ask for an explanation.

He felt a swell of satisfaction when instead she reached for his cellphone and ordered immediate back-up.

The little bungalow was tucked between a low-rise strip mall and the cluster of townhouses that included 1714 Montreal Road. Once it had probably been one of several low-cost, post-war country homes scattered along the road out of town, but the burgeoning city had expanded around it, surrounding it with disparate, ill-matched neighbours. An oak that looked at least fifty years old dominated the front yard, and overgrown cedars obscured the porch. A huge “No Trespassing” sign hung in the front window. Because traffic was light, Green killed the red flashing lights and coasted by, his gaze scouring the property. There was no sign of life and no vehicle in the drive, but a narrow, rutted lane led around the back to a ramshackle shed barely visible from the street. If Patrick was smart enough—and Green suspected he was— he would store his Town Car in the shed and hide all traces of his presence, even from satellite and aerial surveillance.

Green pulled into the adjacent townhouse parking lot and tucked the Impala out of sight behind the complex. Gibbs drew up behind, and the four detectives climbed out of the car.

“Are we waiting for the back-up, sir?” Levesque asked. The late afternoon sun was slanting in over the townhouse rooftops, washing her in a rich gold glow, but it could not hide the lines of fatigue and fear on her face. She was in no shape to be charging into the house on full alert, not knowing what danger Patrick might present.

He nodded. “Get them to meet us here on the east side of the townhouse complex.”

“What about the Tactical Unit?”

Green had been vacillating on that score. Patrick was supposed to be an intelligent, rational man, who would surely know when he’d reached the end of his options. Yet what kind of intelligent, rational man would stab his own wife, not in a rage born of jealousy and despair as most wife-killers did, but in a cold-blooded move to silence her?

He nodded. “Let’s call them in too. You wait here to coordinate it, and you—” he pointed to the detective accompanying Gibbs, “watch the front door of the bungalow. Gibbs and I will take a preliminary look around the back to see if Patrick’s car is there.”

Levesque blanched. “But sir!”

“We’ll stay out of sight, don’t worry. And my cellphone will be on vibrate. Back in ten.”

He didn’t give her more time to object but headed around the back of the complex. A couple of dogs started barking as they passed behind small, fenced patios mostly abandoned to old bicycles, barbeques and broken furniture. Behind one, however, they found a young woman and her toddler picking cherry tomatoes from a sprawling tomato plant just outside her allotted space. She dropped her bowl in fear at their approach, spilling bright red tomatoes all over the grass. Her son squealed with delight and she recoiled, pulling him to her. Green placed his finger to his lips, showed her his badge and drew her inside the shelter of her fence. A pretty oasis of flowers, garden art and a child’s wading pool full of floating plastic toys greeted them.

She propped her child on her hip, only marginally less suspicious. He gestured to the bungalow, whose roof was barely visible above the lilac bushes and thistle that had taken over the lot. “Have you seen any signs of activity in or around that house?”

She hesitated. “That’s been abandoned as long as I’ve lived here.”

“Yes, I know, but has anyone been staying there in the past few days?”

The son squirmed, but she pressed him even closer. “What’s this about? Is something wrong?”

“No. We’re looking for a young woman who may be in danger, and our information is that she may be staying there.”

“Danger? What kind of danger?”

Green cursed himself for letting too much slip. “We’d like to talk to her, that’s all. She may have some information. Have you seen her?”

“She says she owns the place, and one day she’s going to build her dream house there.”

Green hid his excitement. “You’ve talked to her? When?”

Finally trusting enough, the woman set her squirming son down, and he toddled off towards the tomatoes with a shriek. “Last month? She’s been there on and off for a few months. Looked like she’d seen better days, so I figured what’s the harm?”

A few months was a long time to be without water or electricity, Green thought. The young mother was frowning as if debating whether to add something.

Green encouraged her gently. “Concerns?”

“It’s just... She
has
been acting weird lately. Like she’s scared of someone. At first she seemed pretty nice, not exactly friendly like, but she’d borrow water from me sometimes or play with my little boy. But recently when she goes there, she sneaks in the back way around behind the strip mall like she doesn’t want to be seen. And she hardly ever comes out of the house, just sneaks out at night, and she keeps the windows covered up so you can’t see in. She won’t answer when I say hello, just looks the other way like she doesn’t want to be seen.”

“Did you ever see anyone else visit? A man, for example?”

“She’s not there all the time. I think her father tried to visit, but they don’t get on. A few months ago when we used to talk, she told me he’s a lawyer and he’s trying to tear her house down.”

“Is someone there now? Did you see a white Town Car, for example?”

She bit her lip, looking distressed. “I was out so I didn’t see anyone arrive, but I think I heard some sound—maybe voices? A couple of hours ago.”

“Male or female?”

“I couldn’t tell. Just a low murmur. But it surprised me, because she’s usually alone.”

Green’s scalp prickled with dread. “You’ve been extremely helpful. For now, would you please take your child in your house, lock the doors, and stay inside until we give you the all-clear.”

Her eyes widened. “There
is
danger!” she gasped, snatching up her child again.

“Just as a precaution.”

“Fuck,” she breathed. “You read about these things, but you never think it will ever happen!”