None So Blind (22 page)

“Bob, you should be at home.”

“I’m taking it easy, sir. J — just desk work, tracing Lazlo and Mullenthorpe.”

“Don’t overdo it. I want you home by noon. Any luck locating Lazlo?”

“No, sir.” Gibbs coughed. “But his business colleagues are upset. He missed an important meeting with their Eastern European partners a couple of days ago. When he shows up, he’s going to be fired. They gave me a cellphone number, but it seems to be turned off.”

Movement outside Laura’s house caught Green’s eye and he glanced up just in time to see Julia sweeping down the front walk and knocking over a china bunny before climbing into her rental car. Two seconds later, the white Accent shot down the road. He debated following her but his tailing techniques, such as they were, were woefully out of practice. Furthermore, this new lead on Erik Lazlo was more important.

“Is Lazlo’s cell number either of these?” Green read off the two numbers from Archie and Julia. “They’re both local.”

“No, sir. But I’ll get right on these.”

“Keep me posted.” Green paused, reluctant to push him further. “If you get a chance, dig around to see if Rosten had a Facebook account under a fake name.”

“That’s pretty hard, sir, without …” He was stopped by a fit of coughing.

“Don’t try to talk, Bob. I’m on my way in to the station now to talk to the Arson squad.”

“Arson, sir?” Bob sputtered.

“Looks like the Carmichael fire was deliberately set. You and Sue hadn’t a hope of stopping it, Bob. You could have been seriously hurt.”

“Who? Who would do such a thing?”

“Did you and Sue see anyone around the scene? Perhaps running away? Or a vehicle driving away?”

“We weren’t looking for that, sir. We came up the road the back way and when we saw the fire, all we thought about was getting people out. But I’ll ask Sue.”

With a word of thanks and an admonition to be gone by noon, Green signed off and started his car. Just as he was pulling away from the curb, an aging pickup rattled into the drive of Laura’s house and a plump, middle-aged woman with orange hair clambered out. She struggled up the walk as if she had bad knees, pausing to pinch a dead iris from the border and to pick up the china bunny that had toppled over into the flowerbed.

She swung around with wide eyes as Green pulled into the lane behind her. She pressed her hand to her heart until his hasty introduction brought an instant gasp of relief.

“You’re Laura Quinn, Marilyn’s friend?”

“Yes, and you must be the inspector she talks about all the time. Come in, come in. Poor Marilyn, what a shock. After all she’s been through and not even back on her feet yet. Your heart just breaks for her, doesn’t it? I’ve left her going over household contents with the fireman. Poor lamb looks done in.”

Laura had a faint Irish lilt that had been worn down by years in Canada. Despite the outlandish orange hair, she looked older than Marilyn, and had probably immigrated in the post-war boom of the 1950s. From cozy Irish village to cozy Ontario one.

Laura led him back inside, where she stood surveying the clutter left by Julia. Wet towels bunched on the sofa, mug leaving a wet stain on the coffee table, tote bag on the floor, overflowing with discarded clothes. Laura tightened her lips but refrained from criticism as she silently mopped up the coffee.

“Difficult for them all, of course, although I haven’t seen Gordon or Julia since … well, not since poor Jackie, God rest her soul. I’ve been hoping their arrival would be a comfort to Marilyn, but …” Her voice trailed off. After straightening some crystal lambs on the coffee table, she turned to the kitchen.

“Yes, I know she’s been having trouble coping,” he replied, hoping to encourage her. She shot him an uncertain glance. He ventured further. “This fire is a terrible blow. I’m trying to figure out what happened. She phoned you to pick her up yesterday evening, is that right? What time was that?”

“Just gone six.”

“Did the house look okay then?”

She nodded, placing the two bunny mugs to the sink. “It looked lovely. All dolled up for the party. The children have been helpful that way, I suppose.”

“Did she lock the house when she left?”

“Oh, I didn’t actually go up to the house. When I got there, Marilyn met me at the end of the lane.”

“How did she seem?”

Laura paused. Cast him an oblique look. “Seem?”

“Was she angry? Sad?”

“Ummm, perhaps upset. Out of breath. A little … unkempt, as if she’d been in a rush.”

“Had she been drinking?”

Laura drew a deep breath. Tightened her lips and gave a small nod. “She’s been through so much that I’m not going to fault her. But she was very unsteady. She wanted to go shopping and do some baking for the party, but I persuaded her to come here for some coffee and dinner, get herself cleaned up —”

“Cleaned up?”

“Well, she reeked.”

“Of what?”

“To be honest, alcohol. And I think she’d been sick as well. Anyway, she needed a good scrub.”

“Any other smells?”

She frowned. “Like what?”

“Smoke?”

“I didn’t notice that. But I didn’t try very hard, if you know what I mean.”

“Gasoline?”

Her eyes widened. “Gasoline! What would she be doing with that?”

“It might have been the reason the fire started,” he replied vaguely. “Lying around or whatever. If she’d spilled it …”

“There were a lot of smells here in the house. I had to use half a bottle of air freshener this morning. But I couldn’t tell you what they were. Now that I think about it, gasoline? It’s possible.”

Green was on the Queensway on his way back to the station from Navan when his cellphone rang again.

“Your father has stopped eating,” the nurse said. Over the phone, her tone sounded accusatory, as if it were somehow Green’s fault.

He pictured his father — pale skin draped over brittle bone, muscle and fat long since melted away. Barely a hundred pounds even before the stroke. He couldn’t afford to refuse a single calorie needed to keep the fading embers of his life alive.

“What does he say?” he asked.

“Nothing. That’s the point. He’s doing nothing. Won’t touch his food, won’t open his mouth when we offer it. We may need a feeding tube.”

Green glanced at his watch. He was hoping to talk to Sullivan and the others about their progress in the case before reporting the latest developments to Superintendent Neufeld. But it was just after noon and the hospital meals would have made their rounds.

“Don’t,” he said. “Is his tray still in his room?”

“Yes.”

“Leave it there. I’m coming.”

He hesitated at the Metcalfe exit ramp, from which he could see the police station with the website emblazoned across its brutal concrete facade; however, instead of exiting, he reluctantly continued west. En route he phoned Hannah’s cell.

“Why don’t you ever text, Dad? It’s cheaper.”

He tried to laugh. “You know me and thumbs. Can you get away? I’d like to visit
Zaydie
.”

“Great minds. I’m just getting off the bus outside.”

“You’re an angel! I’m on my way. See if you can persuade him to eat.”

“That slop? I have a cheese bagel from Vince’s in my bag.”

His laugh was genuine this time. Cheese bagels had been the food of choice on their weekly father-son outings, in the old days when Nate’s Deli on Rideau Street offered the full range of artery-clogging Jewish delights — smoked meat on rye, chopped liver, knishes, and
varenikes
. Vince’s Ottawa bagel shop was not in the old Lowertown neighbourhood, but it did its best.

“I love you,” he said, signing off before she could summon a wisecrack response. Hannah would perk his father up. If there was anything Sid loved more than cheese bagels, it was his older granddaughter — the namesake and living replica of the woman he’d loved for over forty years.

When he walked into his father’s room, however, Sid’s lips were resolutely shut and the cheese bagel lay untouched on his bed table. Hannah, never the pillar of patience, was sitting with her arms crossed, scowling at him.

“
Zaydie
, that cost me four bucks!”

“Then you eat it.”

“I don’t even like cheese bagels. They’re like lead, thudding down to the very bottom of your stomach.” She leaned toward him. “They take three days to digest. Still …” She picked up a spoonful of anaemic yellow pudding from his tray. “You want this
drek
instead?”

Sid spotted Green coming across the room. “
Mishka
, you tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Green leaned over to kiss his pallid cheek.

“This. All this.” Sid waved a frail hand to encompass his food, his IVs, and the monitors beeping discreetly in the corner. He yanked at his IV. “I don’t want.”

“
Zaydie!”
Hannah looked stricken and Green regretted having dragged her into it. A twenty-year-old who had been to the brink of death and back herself did not deserve this burden.

“Dad.” Green stopped his hand. “Hannah is just trying to help.”

“Jesus, Dad!” Hannah said, snatching the bagel away. “Let me have my own thoughts.
Zaydie
, I get that you’re tired. It’s hard to keep going and it’s not much fun. I get that you fought off death many times already, and this time you’re not sure why you should.”

Sid turned his head to her. His soft, rheumy brown eyes reflected sadness and joy together. He reached his claw-like hand over hers. “Tell him. Tell your father.”

Green found he couldn’t speak. He rose and walked out into the hall, leaving his wild, rebellious, angry but infinitely wiser daughter to handle the goodbyes. She came out a moment later, tears brimming now that she was away from him.

“We don’t get a say, do we, Dad.”

“No, we don’t.” He folded her to him and held her tightly.

“No one’s going to put a feeding tube in him, are they?”

He shook his head, his face still buried in her turquoise-tipped hair.

“Good. I left the cheese bagel there. Just in case.”

B
ack
at the station Superintendent Neufeld ambushed him just as he reached his office. She strode in, shut the door, and leaned against it with her arms crossed as if barring anyone else entry.

“Status report on Rosten, Inspector.”

“I was just about to call you.” With an effort, he put the hospital behind him and focused on the investigation. He filled her in on the discovery of the hidden camera and the secretive late-evening visitor to Rosten’s cottage. “It seems clear he set a trap but it backfired on him.”

She looked grim. “But there’s no proof this visitor killed him. The PM still points to suicide.”

“The visitor went to extraordinary lengths to avoid detection, and obviously removed the other camera located inside.”

“Still —”

“There’s more. The Carmichael house burned to the ground last night. Suspected arson.”

From her expression, he could tell she already knew.
Does this woman keep tabs on everything?
he wondered. “That was my next question,” she said. “How does that connect?”

Green shrugged. “Perhaps only peripherally. The children want the mother to sell, but she’s resisting.”

“Then it’s Arson’s case.”

“Yes, and they’ll handle it. But as long as there’s a killer out there and the fire involves persons of interest, I’m going to keep a hand in. Besides, I know this family’s history. Arson will need my input.”

She tightened her arms and pursed her lips as she weighed her response. Finally she nodded. “Fair enough. Media Relations is going to need some copy. The press may make the connection to Rosten’s death, and we need to control the rumours.”

The latest news update on the fire had identified the Carmichael house but so far had focused on a possible lightning strike. But it only took one enterprising reporter.

“I’ll get Staff Sergeant Sullivan on it,” he said. Sullivan was a pro at press interviews. Imposing, impenetrable, and unflappable, he could stonewall with the best.

Behind his closed office door, Green could hear noises in the hallway. A woman’s voice raised in agitation, murmurs of reassurance, his name requested. Neufeld raised her eyebrows and turned to leave. A faint smile seemed to flicker at the corners of her mouth.

“The hounds are at your gate,” she said, and she was gone.

Leaving him in disbelief. Had that really been a smile? Was there hope?

Searching for the source of the commotion, he found Marilyn Carmichael standing by the elevator, arguing with a very red-faced Gibbs.

Gibbs turned fuchsia at the sight of him. “Sorry, sir. I — I was going to —” he began but Marilyn dived in.

“What’s going on, Mike? What are you keeping from me? Why were you questioning Laura and Julia? We’ve barely had a moment to recover from the fire.”

“Evidence is destroyed very quickly, Marilyn. We need to know what to look for.”

“What evidence?”

“Accelerants, for one.”

“You mean gasoline? That’s what you were asking Laura about, isn’t it? Do you think I burned down my house?”

“I don’t think anything at this point. The Arson Unit has to look at all possibilities.”

“But you … you …” She quivered and struggled to breathe. Around them, activity had ceased as all eyes focused on them.

“Marilyn,” he said, taking her elbow. “Let’s talk in my office.” He waited until he had closed the door behind him before he spoke again. “I know this is difficult. We have to investigate all possibilities.”

“And you think it’s possible the fire was deliberate?”

“The fire investigator smelled gasoline.”

Her eyes searched his. Her lips still trembled but her eyes were clear and sharp. No smell of gin floated around her. Fear and uncertainty warred across her face, as if she were looking for an answer inside her own thoughts.

“Do you know something?” he asked gently.

“I did it.”

Her voice was so soft he wasn’t sure he’d even heard. “What?”

“I burned it down.”

“How?”

“Gasoline, just as you said.”

He longed to push for details, but resisted the urge. This was Arson’s case, not his. “There are procedures to follow. Before you make any statement, you should speak to a lawyer.”

“No lawyers, no procedures. Just you.”

“Marilyn, please.”

Her head jerked up. “Mike! I don’t care what happens. I don’t want all the past dug up again, the media following us around, Julia and Gordon harassed. I burned my house down. I hated it, hated the memories, the pain, the horror of it. I just wanted it gone!” Her voice grew shrill and fresh colour stung her cheeks.

“You’ve lived there twenty years since Jackie died. You were fixing it all up for your party. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nothing makes any sense anymore! I’d been fighting it and fighting it, but I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Were you …?”

“Drunk? Yes. But that wasn’t the reason. It was just the courage.”

“How did you do it?”

“Luke had jerry cans of gasoline in the shed for the lawnmower and the generator. He often started fires in our pit that way. I started it in the basement because I know fire rises.”

“Where in the basement?”

“I don’t remember, Mike. It’s all a blur.”

“How did you ignite it?”

She frowned as if he were exceptionally dim. “With a match.”

He knew that contrary to television wisdom, lighting a match in a room doused with gasoline would produce an instant conflagration as the fumes ignited. Many an inexperienced arsonist was burned to a crisp making that mistake.

“From where?”

“From the top of the stairs. I threw the match down and … up it all went.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. He knew he should have stopped her confession and brought in the Arson team. At the very least, he should have insisted on cautioning her and recording the interview. But something did not feel right.

“I’m not sure I believe you, Marilyn.”

She was gripping her hands in her lap as if to keep herself still. Now she stiffened. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“The whole truth?”

Her gaze wavered. She looked down at her hands and twisted her fingers. It was then he noticed her wedding ring was missing, leaving a pale indent on her fourth finger. He softened his voice. “What’s going on?”

Her lips trembled. A large tear spilled over and dripped off the end of her nose. She did nothing to wipe it away. She drew a deep, halting breath. Another. Looked around the room as if searching for escape.

“Marilyn?”

“I found something,” she whispered.

“What?”

“When I was cleaning. Hidden in the basement among Luke’s old magazines. I found …” She shook her head as if to banish the memory. “I found photographs.”

Green’s blood chilled. “Of what?”

“Of Jackie.”

“Sexual photographs?”

“Some. Jackie with no clothes. With her boyfriend um … on the bed. In her room. Close-ups. Disgusting.”

The question had to be asked. He searched for gentle words. “Were there any photos of Luke with her?”

She whipped her head back and forth.

“Then, as awful as that was, maybe he was just spying —”

“And of the body. Of Jackie in the woods.”

All his years spent knee-deep in depravity counted for nothing. He was frozen. “Alive?” He managed.

A single sob shuddered through her. “Dead. Strangled. A belt — Luke’s belt — around her neck.”

Green forced himself to focus despite his dawning horror. The ligature used to kill Jackie had never been found, although the buckle had left a distinctive square imprint and forensic analysis had revealed traces of leather fibre in her bruised flesh. “Did you find the belt?”

Another sob, dry and wrenching. “I did look. Other things were hidden in other places. Jackie’s clothes and hair ribbons, her childhood teddy bear. I had given it to her for Christmas, and we thought it was lost. Jackie was so upset. He saved all these things. Trophies — isn’t that what they’re called?” She took a deep breath as if to cleanse herself, and straightened her shoulders. Her voice was flat now, the emotion spent, the worst expunged.

“I’ve lived a lie all these years, believing it was Rosten, believing Luke was as much a victim as myself. Believing I needed to protect him and hold him together because he was not as strong as me. I defended him against all the gossip and against all my own little doubts. Even Julia’s hints. That’s what I hate him for the most, for allowing me to protect and love him when all that time he’d killed my baby girl. He sat through the trial and watched that poor man go to jail for life. Some days I am so filled with hate that I go down into the basement and scream.”

He cut into her tirade. “Where are these photos now?”

“I burned everything I could find. Not in the fire but earlier, in the fire pit. Along with all his old clothes.”

“When exactly did you find these photos?”

“When I was cleaning out his things from the basement.”

He thought back to that abrupt change in her mood, when she had ordered Bob and Sue off her land. To the scream he had heard inside the house. Stubbed her toe, she’d said. Deep in his gut, anger stirred. “Back in March?”

She nodded.

“And that’s why you supported Rosten’s parole?”

Again she nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She bowed her head at the veiled rebuke. “A lot of reasons. To protect Julia and Gordon, to put it all behind me. No, that’s not true. I just couldn’t face it. I’d lied to give him an alibi. He wasn’t home all evening because I’d sent him out shopping. I couldn’t face the media and all the village gossip. All the shame. It was too late to do anything. Luke was dead, and all the dreadful backlash would land on me. Rosten was going to be released anyway. So I kept quiet.”

“Did you tell Rosten when you met him? Is that
why
you met him?”

“No. I only wanted to see how he was doing, and to tell him I wished him well. I’d watched him at his trial and I knew he’d never let this go. But … I did end up telling him I wasn’t sure he was guilty.”

“How did he take that?”

“He wanted to know why, but I didn’t tell him. Just that I’d found some things.”

But that hint would have been enough to launch the tenacious professor on his new mission to track down the real killer. A mission that had cost him his life, all because this woman had chosen to keep her appalling discovery a secret. Green had to fight hard to remain calm.

“You realize you can’t keep it quiet any longer. I will ask one of my officers to take a formal statement from you and it will become part of the investigation into both the fire and Rosten’s death. You withheld — no, destroyed — crucial evidence that could have resulted in a very different outcome for him.”

She raised her head to face him. She looked exhausted, but calmer for relinquishing the burden. “We were all duped by Luke, you know. He made us all party to his atrocity, accessories after the fact to all the tragedies that poor man suffered. I burned down my house not to destroy any other evidence he might have hidden, but to destroy the memory of him. To destroy the place where I’d shared my life with him.”

Green managed to maintain his dispassion long enough to hand her over to Levesque for her statement, but afterwards he slammed his door and paced his office for a good five minutes. His guts were roiling with fury. Marilyn deserved all the censure he had given her for her part in Rosten’s death, but he knew his rage came from a deeper place than that. Damn it, he had been wrong. So wrong! All those years that Rosten had railed at him about Lucas’s guilt and he’d been too pig-headed to reconsider. To double-check Lucas’s alibi. Lucas’s vehicle had been a loose end. The shop mechanic had been unable to swear it was in the lot all day, which meant that Lucas could have picked it up, driven Jackie to Morris Island, and had it back on the lot without the mechanic even noticing. How could he have missed the signs, when all the hallmarks were there? Almost all children are abused and killed by a family member. And all too often, spouses lie to protect them.

In the end, it didn’t matter how and why he’d screwed up. It only mattered that because of his mistake, an innocent man had been robbed of his freedom, his health, and ultimately his life. But this was no time for personal reproach or analysis; there was a murder to investigate, evidence to collect, and investigators who needed to know the facts. Once his head was clear enough to report them without anger, he reached for the phone.

The fire investigation team was still out at the fire site, slowly sifting through the ashes and tagging and bagging possible evidence as they went along. Listening to Green’s update, Harry Flannigan grunted.

“She’s lucky she didn’t incinerate herself by throwing matches down the basement stairs like that.”

“When do you think your report will be finished?”

“We should be finished our on-site examination tomorrow. The analyses won’t be in but I can probably get something preliminary to you by the end of today.”

“That long?”

“That’s fast! It’s hot as a bitch out here today, which is slowing us down. What’s your hurry?”

“I’d like the Arson Unit to have it on hand when they question Mrs. Carmichael.”

“Has she been charged?”

“Not yet. I want the Arson Unit to handle that aspect. There are a lot of elements to this case.”

“Fair enough, but she’s already admitted she set the fire.”

Green thought about the hidden evidence and Marilyn’s reluctance to let anyone into the house over the last few months. “I’m just not sure she’s telling us the whole story. Do me a favour? If you find anything else in your search — anything odd or suspicious — give me a call.”

Green had just hung up the phone when there was a soft knock at his office door.
Fuck
, he thought,
not more
! Before he could find a civil response, the door opened and Sullivan entered, carrying a brown paper bag.

“I hear you’ve had a wild day,” he said. “When did you last eat?”

Green sagged back in his chair with relief. “I don’t know. Breakfast?”