This Thing of Darkness (13 page)

Nadif Hassan slouched in the hard plastic interview chair and tried to look bored as Levesque ran through the introductions, the Charter caution, and other legalities for the record. He made no effort to demand his lawyer, acting instead as if the whole process were a waste of his time. His arms were folded across his chest and his legs stretched out in front, so long they hit the opposite wall in the tiny room. Not much of an actor, but Green had to admit he was a handsome young man, with clean, elongated lines, huge black eyes and flawless skin the colour of black coffee. He had a face that could have graced the cover of fashion magazines, right down to the sulky pout.

Really, Nadif, Green thought, your mug shot doesn't do you justice.

Marie Claire Levesque was sitting in the chair opposite with a laptop and a thick file open on the table before her and a paper bag on the floor at her feet. Behind her by the door stood Charbonneau, his notebook open. Charbonneau was a fixture in Major Crimes, but never had Green seen him so enthusiastic and alert as he'd been since Marie Claire came on the scene.

Charbonneau and his notebook, the laptop, the file and the paper bag were all part of the theatrical props, Green knew. After she'd finished the formalities, Levesque stared the suspect down for a few moments, but his eyes were fixed on the wall behind her. When she spoke, her voice was soft.

“Well, Mr. Hassan, you're in a lot of trouble here.”

It was not a question, and Nadif was experienced enough to give no answer. Not even a flicker of an eye.

“Your trial for attempted murder has barely begun, and here you are committing another crime.”

Still Nadif said nothing.

“Where were you last Saturday night, between ten p.m. and four a.m?”

“You know that. Home with my mother.”

“Will your father confirm that?”

A heartbeat's hesitation. “He was out at work. Blue Line Taxi.”

“An elderly gentleman named Samuel Rosenthal was beaten to death not six blocks from your house.”

“Lot of people live six blocks from my house.”

“So you were home with your mother. You're sure?”

“That's what I said.”

Levesque opened her laptop and pressed a few buttons before swivelling it so Nadif could see the screen. She pressed “play”.

Nadif only had to watch the screen for ten seconds before his coffee-coloured skin took on a grey tinge.

“This is from a pawn shop on Rideau Street,” Levesque said conversationally. “You notice the date and time are stamped in the corner.”

Nadif sneered. “Gee, I forgot. I went out with some friends for a couple of hours. That a crime?”

“For you, yes. It's a breach. Plus lying to the police, in your circumstances, might be too.”

“Like I said, I forgot.”

“Okay. So you admit you weren't home with your mama all Saturday night, but were out on Rideau Street at 2:17 a.m?”

“Maybe for a bit. But I didn't see nothing.”

“No old man walking on the street? No old man lying in the alley by a building?” Nadif had been shaking his head. Levesque flicked her pen toward the camera in the corner. “Yes or no for the record.”

The young man pouted into the camera and mimed, “No. Bitch.”

Levesque closed the laptop as if she hadn't noticed and set it aside. Quietly she reached down into the paper bag and extracted a pair of black dress shoes in a clear plastic evidence bag. She placed them on the table without a word. Nadif 's pout vanished.

“What are these?” she asked.

“I don't know, pigs' feet?” She waited. He looked away. “Shoes.”

“Whose?”

“Never seen them before. Not my style.” Nadif managed a smirking motion with his lips.

“They were found behind the furnace in your house.”

“Don't know nothing about that. Never go down there.”

“Hidden.”

Nadif shrugged. “How do I know you pigs didn't plant them? Can't get me on the Rideau Centre beef, so you figured—”

“Your fingerprints are all over them, Nadif. Don't you watch
CSI
?”

The man grew sullen.

“Lying again. Remember what I said?”

“I forgot. I bought them for my dad. A present, you know? For all the trouble I caused him.”

In the video room, Green laughed aloud. To her credit, Levesque didn't even blink. “Bought them.”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

Nadif sat very still. Green could almost see him calculating, wondering how much she knew and what story he should tell. “From a guy.”

“What guy?”

Nadif rolled his eyes as if the question was stupid. “I didn't ask his name. He got a nice pair of shoes at a good price. I don't got much money to spend on things, you know.”

“Well...” Levesque picked up the shoes and turned them this way and that, as if examining them. “This nice pair of shoes just happens to have blood on them. Sam Rosenthal's blood. Someone tried very hard to clean them, but you know, you can never get blood out of all the little cracks. That's another thing you should know from
CSI
.”

Nadif unfolded his arms and thrust his chair back as if trying to get away from the shoes. He looked angry. “Fuck.”

“Fuck what?”

“The asshole screwed me!”

“What asshole?”

“The guy sold me the shoes. Told me they belonged to his father. No wonder the fucking price was so low!”

“Did you clean the blood off?”

“No, no! I never saw no blood!”

“We can test the cleaners, you know. Compare residue on the shoes to the cleaners in your house.”

Green smiled. It was a stretch, especially if it was a common cleaner, but the witness wouldn't know that.
CSI
had made lots of things seem possible. She was good.

“So? Maybe he used the same cleaner as we have. You can't prove nothing!”

“His name, Nadif.”

Nadif 's eyes flashed. “I don't know his fucking name!”

Levesque stared him down for a good thirty seconds. “Okay, here's what we have for the courts, Nadif.” She raised her hand to tick off points. “First, you breached your release conditions and lied about being out on Rideau Street Saturday night. Second, you lied about hiding the shoes. Third, you lied about not cleaning the blood off the shoes. Fourth, you say you bought them from a man but you don't know who he is.” She waggled her fingers accusingly. “This is not looking good, Nadif. The shoes tie you to the dead man sure as a noose. You took them right off his feet—”

“No.”

“After you beat him to death with a baseball bat.”

“No!”

“Your prints, his blood, hidden behind the furnace? Come on.”

“I told you, someone gave them to me.”

“Gave them or sold them?”

“Sold them.” Nadif swallowed convulsively. “Sold them!”

“Who? That's all we need to get you out of this mess.”

The man hesitated, cunning flitting across his handsome features. Lightning fast, Levesque slapped the table in front of him. “One name.”

“Omar!” He shot back. “Fucking Omar Adams. He told me he found them.”

Green was on the living room sofa, fast asleep in front of the late night news, when Sharon arrived home from her shift. She snuggled in beside him, chuckling.

“I don't know why you bother,” she said. “You miss all the good stuff.”

“I catch the headlines,” he said, fighting a yawn. He returned her kiss and felt a sleepy stirring in his groin. “Mmm. How tired are you?”

For an answer, she slipped her soft, delicate hand under his shirt. “Where's Hannah?” she whispered through a kiss.

“Asleep,” he murmured, taking her hand and heading for the stairs. Upstairs, he surrendered himself to a delicious fifteen minutes in her arms.

Afterwards he felt wide awake and followed her down into the kitchen while she fixed her midnight snack. She wore that doe-eyed, sated smile he loved so much, and she flashed it at him as she opened the fridge. “That was a nice surprise.”

“Feel free to surprise me whenever you like,” he replied.

She twisted around to face him. “You know, I've been thinking—”

“Always unwise after a long day.”

She hesitated then allowed the slow smile to return. Shaking her head, she bent to peer into the fridge.

Green cast about for a diversion. “How was your day?”

She fished out a block of cheese and two eggs. She shrugged as she cracked these into a bowl. “No catastrophes. I count that as a good day.”

He debated, reluctant to bring work issues into this languid erotic moment between them. In the end, she herself broke the spell.

“Any more developments on the Rosenthal case?”

“We're looking at a group of black youth who live in the area, including the young man who did the Rideau Centre knifing.”

“So you're not looking at any of his former patients after all?”

“Well, I'm looking at everything, including Rosenthal's son, who can't even be bothered to contact us to claim the body, let alone care about who might have killed his father.”

She dropped butter into a pan and began to whisk the eggs. “Who knows what goes on in families?” She paused to test the eggs. Her movements were pensive. “We had an interesting admission at the hospital last night. Remember I was telling you about having to patch up Dr. Rosenthal's patients when he had them on some off-the-wall herbal remedy?”

He nodded. “Right. The difficulty of deciding when to drug and when to talk.”

“Well, there's no contest in this case. The woman's a paranoid schizophrenic, been in and out of hospital for years. On her previous admissions she responded pretty well to meds, but she'd gone off them again, and she was completely off the rails. Her thoughts were so jumbled, I could barely do the admission. Screaming, ranting about plots, and soldiers of Lucifer...” She poured the eggs into the pan. The sweet scent of butter and egg rose with the steam. “I've rarely seen anyone so agitated. She wasn't making much sense, but I distinctly heard the name Dr. Rosenthal.”

He stiffened, all senses alert. “What are you thinking? That she may have really seen something?”

“What?” Sharon swung around in surprise, her spatula in hand. “Oh, no. It was the way she said his name.
Dr.
Rosenthal. As if she knew him. I got to wondering if he'd been treating her, professionally, I mean.”

“But I thought he hadn't practised in years.”

“I know, and this could have been from years ago. But maybe he still was, in the odd special case. Maybe he was still preaching his new age illusions to some unsuspecting souls.”

Nine

A
s he walked to the police cruiser, Omar Adams shoved his hands into the pouch of his hoodie to hide their shaking. Maybe it might even make him look cool, he thought, although he was sure the cops could hear his heart hammering against his ribs. It was too early in the morning to even think straight. His mouth was so dry, he could hardly talk, so it was a good thing he'd decided to say as little as possible. More than one side could play that game, he thought with a defiance he didn't feel. The cops bringing him in hadn't said a word. Two big guys beefed up by Kevlar vests, with caps pulled down to their eyes, had muscled their way in the door past his mother. She'd shrieked and cried and hit them with her fists until he came out of his hiding spot and told her to stop. No point her getting in trouble because of him. This wasn't Somalia.

If the old man had been there, it might have been different—he would have demanded to know what this was all about—but he'd gone off to his delivery job. The cops just said Omar was wanted for questioning. Period. Plus other cops had turned up with a search warrant for the house at exactly the same time, as if they'd arranged it. They hadn't taken no for an answer from his mother either, even when she said she didn't read English. Omar only got a quick look at the warrant before the first cops hustled him out the door, but what he read made him go cold all over. They wanted all the baseball bats and other long bats in the house, all his clothes, even his shoes for fuck's sake. A couple of rings.

And a fancy chainlink watch.

Fuck. What did they know? How had they found him? The video in the pawn shop? Fingerprints? Or Nadif.

On the ride into the station, staring through the cage at their black and red police caps, he tried to pull his galloping fears back under control. What could they have on him? He'd thrown the Rolex into the river as Nadif had suggested. Lucky his mother had washed his clothes and his father had made him scrub every inch of the bathroom with bleach. Omar had cursed him the whole time, but it had proved a good thing.

He didn't remember finding any rings anywhere in his pockets, and the only baseball bat they owned was in the basement, and he hadn't touched it in years. So there could be nothing there to nail him. The shoes...the brand new, high top, black Nikes that he'd worn that night. The shoes were a problem, because he hadn't checked if they had blood on them and he knew the forensics guys could match blood and footprints found at the crime scene. The shoes could be a problem.