“I’ll fix it. The visit has three main purposes, but whatever else you can dig up, hey, that’s gravy. First, find out if Lawrence had a history of violence, either when he was admitted twenty years ago or during his stay. Second, find out if he ever talked about returning home and why. Third, bring the supervisor Angie Hogencamp up here to confirm the ID.”
Sullivan nodded, tossed back the last of his coffee and lobbed the cup over Green’s desk, nailing his waste basket dead centre. “Gibbs says you also mentioned going to Toronto. Seems like an awful lot of manhours for a case MacPhail called a probable self-inflicted.”
“I’m not convinced it was self-inflicted. Besides, it’s not just Lawrence’s death I’m concerned about. It’s the older brother’s disappearance.”
"And you think...what?” Green shrugged. With Sullivan in this mood, there was no way he was going to share his tenuous theory. “I’m still putting the pieces together.”
Sullivan stuck his foot out and kicked Green’s door shut. “The guy took a dive, Green. End of case. It’s a case I could have handled with my eyes shut. I just asked you along for the ride in the country. The guys out in the sticks grumble that the central brass don’t give a damn. They’ve had four different inspectors out there in the past year. I didn’t expect you to turn it into a major investigation!”
“Then you’ve forgotten who I am.”
Sullivan raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if appealing for patience. “No, I haven’t fucking forgotten. But I’ve got a stack of other cases out on my desk which I have to assign. I’m the officer of record on this case, so I’d appreciate knowing all the facts. I won’t walk into an interview with a bunch of hospital tight asses without knowing exactly why I’m there.”
The two stared each other down. Green was the first to look away, not because Sullivan was tougher, but because he was right. As Green summarized his discussion with Sharon, Sullivan listened with an expression that betrayed nothing. But at the end he shook his head.
“Green, that’s absolute bullshit.”
Green flushed. He knew it was a tenuous theory, especially in the sober light of second thought, and he hadn’t had time to plug all its holes, but he had hoped for a more open reception. “Something terrible happened, Brian,” he repeated doggedly. “And the family tried to erase all signs of it.”
Sullivan shook his head incredulously. “I’ve seen some weird family shit in my career, and not much of what people do surprises me any more. But I grew up in a big family, remember? Five boys, two girls. And I can tell you if the crazy one murdered the family hero, there’s no way any of us would have protected him. If we didn’t kill him ourselves, we’d sure as hell turn him in.”
Green pondered that problem. Being an only child, he couldn’t fully grasp the dynamics of a large family or the notion of conflicting loyalties, but he could imagine the anguish the Pettigrew family had endured in making their decision. He groped ahead, trying to put himself in their shoes.
“But Lawrence was also one of their own. They knew he was crazy and wasn’t responsible for his actions. Or it could have been fear of all the publicity, the protracted pain of a trial, the shame of insanity in the family or even the gossip in the small town. Who the hell knows! I just think they chose their own private form of justice, and they made sure Lawrence would never, ever be free.”
Sullivan was still scowling, but this time his tone was less dismissive. “But you don’t have a body, Green. You don’t even have people wondering if there’s a body.”
“We’ve got a suspicious disappearance. Derek Pettigrew has dropped off the radar screen.”
“Didn’t the drunk—Tom—didn’t he hear from him?”
“We have only his word on that. He was twenty at the time of the blow-up, so he could have been part of the cover-up. Besides, this historic murder could tie into the death we are investigating. If Lawrence did kill Derek, then there might be a line-up of people wanting to pay him back. Hell, the whole goddamn village might know who did it, and they aren’t planning to tell us a thing!”
“Mike, if the family was going to kill him, they’d have done it right then and there, not waited twenty years!”
“Things change,” Green countered, not sure he had an explanation himself, nor a decent list of suspects. “The kids were young, the parents were alive, maybe the revenge took twenty years to fester before something triggered it.”
Sullivan frowned. “You’re talking about Tom.”
“Or Robbie.”
“Robbie was eight years old!”
“And now he’s twenty-eight—a disillusioned, damaged young man whose childhood was ruined and who is now quite strong enough to throw the culprit off that tower.”
“But Robbie barely remembered Lawrence!”
“So he says,” Green countered. “But remember how he never mentioned Lawrence when we interviewed him? And I don’t remember seeing a single photo of Lawrence in that album, which is why we forgot to ask about him.”
Sullivan looked as if he’d been flattened by a steamroller. Which perhaps he had, thought Green ruefully. He held up a conciliatory hand. “I’m not saying it happened, Brian. I’m not saying Lawrence was even murdered. I’m just saying we still have unanswered questions, and we shouldn’t be closing the case till we’ve answered them. So your first step is to confirm that the dead body is actually Lawrence and then to find out all you can about what happened twenty years ago that led to his committal.”
Sullivan rubbed his square hand over his cropped blonde hair, making it stand on end. Green, who was familiar with his every move, knew he was about to cave. “Mike,” Sullivan said in a weary, last-ditch effort. “This is a goddamn fishing expedition. We can’t even get to the murders we have bodies for, let alone one that the family is denying ever happened.”
Green hesitated, reluctant to add more wild speculation to Sullivan’s already overloaded plate. “Maybe that’s because they’re hiding something more,” he muttered.
“What?”
This time Green didn’t respond. He was thinking of the two love letters in different handwriting, of a beautiful blackhaired girl who had left town at the same time. He had only the vaguest fear of what might have happened to her, but it was too early to even voice it aloud.
“Suit yourself,” Sullivan muttered finally, thrusting his chair back to stand up. He was too much of a professional to sulk, but Green watched with dismay as he strode across the room to snatch his jacket off his chair. There was an anger to his movements that went far beyond the minor spat they’d had. Behind closed doors, they often shed their disparate ranks and argued about a case, just as they had in the old days together in the field. But their disputes rarely bubbled over into the more personal sphere.
Green sat at his desk fearing what was at the root of Sullivan’s mood. The station was alive with rumours about promotions and a major shake-up in assignments. Sullivan had been a sergeant for seven years, but in recent years his hopes of rising higher had always been thwarted by politics. Besides being an anglophone with only rudimentary French, Sullivan was a white male at a time when that was a major roadblock to promotional hopes.
Green wondered if Sullivan had heard something that he, Green, had not. Green was often the last to hear the rumours; all his ambitious middle management colleagues knew he was content to stay where he was, anxious to avoid being promoted any further, and utterly useless as an ally or co-conspirator in the climb up the ladder. He had an anxious thought that the Deputy Chief might even be planning to move him to a totally different posting like District Inspector, where he’d be expected to oversee patrol operations about which he knew absolutely nothing. Banishing that crazy thought from his head, he phoned Ident to ask if they’d made any progress on the fingerprints, either on the ladder or on the bloody note.
“Green, I’d tell you if there was,” Cunningham exclaimed. “You want any old answer, or do you want the right one? I’ve got a dozen cases on the go here.”
“Just asking. I’m bumping this up to a higher priority.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I can tell you one of the nice latents we got off the ladder is the dead man’s, which is no surprise. The stained print on the note isn’t.”
“I want you to pull Thomas Pettigrew’s prints off the system and see if they match anything. Hang on, I’ll get you his FPS number.” Green rummaged on his desk for the printout Gibbs had taken off the police computer. With the requisite grumbling about workloads and Green’s lack of appreciation for the complexity of forensic work, Cunningham agreed to look into it.
On a roll, Green summoned Bob Gibbs and gave him Sandy Fitzpatrick’s yearbook. If anyone could track down a person from a stone-cold, twenty-year-old trail, it was Gibbs. He would revel in the challenge.
“We’re looking for Sophia Vincelli,” Green told him. “Her family lived in Richmond twenty years ago and may still. Once you’ve found her, let me know directly, and we’ll take it from there. Sergeant Sullivan is on assignment out of town for the day.”
No sooner had Gibbs loped out of the office with the yearbook under his arm than Green’s phone buzzed. It was the clerk of Superintendent Jules, Chief of Detectives.
“The Superintendent would like to know if he could have a word with you this morning. Does ten thirty suit you?” Adam Jules was a man of manners and protocol, but Green was not deceived by the courtesy; it was an order, not a request. Green’s mouth went dry. He wanted to ask the reason but knew that was not part of the protocol. Nor was negotiating a different time. Jules was a meticulous man, and if he said ten thirty, that was what he meant.
The Chief of Detectives was sitting at his desk poring over a procedural manual when his clerk ushered Green in. He had acquired gold-rimmed reading glasses a few months earlier and these were perched on the bridge of his fine aquiline nose. He peered over them, pressed his lips together in his idea of a smile and rose to offer Green his hand.
“Michael, thank you for coming.” He closed the procedural manual and came around his desk to sit in one of the four chairs clustered around a coffee table by the window. With a fluid flick of his manicured hand, he invited Green to sit.
A coffee table conversation, thought Green with alarm. Always a bad sign. He forced himself to sit down and wait. Adam Jules was a man of few words, but each word spoke volumes. This time, however, he seemed to be having trouble getting started. He removed his glasses, folded them with precision and slipped them into the breast pocket of his jacket. Pursed his lips, gazed out the window. Like the rest of the senior brass, he had a spectacular view of the Museum of Nature, which rose like an elaborate Scottish castle in the middle of a grassy square across the road. Grey clouds massed on the horizon beyond the ramparts. Green hoped they weren’t an omen. His hand strayed to his tie, checking to see if the knot was crooked. It felt too tight. He pulled at it gently. Waited.
Jules drew in his breath. His cheeks were tinged pink, and Green realized that beneath his almost unreadable exterior, Adam Jules was upset. “The announcement of the latest assignments and transfers will be released this afternoon, but I thought it only fair to let you know...”
He paused. Green’s heart plummeted. “That as of next week, I will be assuming command of the Eastern Division, and—”
“What!”
“I’ve been transferred to Eastern Division.”
“Out of CID?” Green asked stupidly. He was dumbfounded.
Jules was a career detective who knew and had performed every job of the detectives under his command. He’d been Green’s boss at one level or another for almost all of Green’s investigative career. CID without Adam Jules was unthinkable.
Jules grew pinker as he nodded. As Green’s astonishment subsided, he realized this move had not been Jules’ wish. The Police Chief had obviously decided that his top advisers needed to know all aspects of policing and that no single officer could monopolize a field.
“I’m sorry, Adam. Truly sorry. You’ll be greatly missed.” Green’s thoughts raced ahead in alarmed contemplation of possible replacements. “Can you tell me...?”
Jules made a slight face. “Inspector Devine. Her promotion will be announced tomorrow.”
Green’s heart sank still further. He suspected his horror showed on his face, for Jules smiled faintly. “She’s an experienced detective.”
She is that, Green thought. Experienced in working a room, feathering a nest and putting a favourable spin. Barbara Devine had spent about two years in each of the units she’d worked, just long enough to lodge her toe firmly on the next rung in the ladder. Things couldn’t get any worse. Then again, he thought, perhaps they could. He hardly dared ask the question.
“Is there anyone else in my section I need to know about?”
Jules managed his tight smile again, and Green knew he wasn’t fooled. “There are those who argued the inspectors should be moved around to allow new people a crack at each job. New blood, new perspectives. I persuaded them that with a new Chief of Detectives at the helm, we needed to keep the experienced CID people in place.”
Relief and gratitude flowed through Green, mixing with the regret he felt at losing Jules. At least he himself had been spared for now. “It’s the only job I’m good at, Adam.”
Jules cocked his head. “You might surprise yourself some day.”
“What about the NCOs? Any changes there?”
Jules nodded. “You have a new staff sergeant in Major Crimes.”
Which was no loss, because the current one was close to burn out. “Someone I know?”
“Gaetan Larocque, from Organized Fraud. Good man.”
Green felt a new wave of regret. Larocque was a good enough investigator, seasoned and hard-working. But Fraud was a far cry from Major Crimes, and as far as Green knew, he hadn’t done a homicide investigation in years. But that wasn’t the worst of it. If Gaetan Larocque got his promotion to Staff Sergeant, that meant Brian Sullivan had been passed over yet again, by a man five years his junior.
* * *
Isabelle Boisvert was heading down County Road 2, still a good half kilometre from her turn-off, when she spotted something moving in her front yard. At first she thought Jacques had decided to take another day off from the office, but as she drew nearer, the sunlight flashed off a metal object far larger than the Sunbird. It was a dump truck.
She shoved her foot harder on the accelerator and felt the minivan sputter in response. She took the turn at top speed and slewed the minivan down the lane, bumping over ruts and showering gravel in her wake. She reached the front yard just in time to see the truck dump a massive load of crushed stone onto the ground. She leaped out of the minivan and stormed towards the truck, her shouts futile over the rattle of the stones.
The company name Scott Construction was stencilled on the cab door in faded red. A burly man with a John Deere cap, wrap-around sunglasses and tattooed biceps the size of Douglas firs, was perched inside, peering over his shoulder at the gravel in the back. Behind him, where the tangle of shrubs had been, was a gaping hole bordered by a square of rough cut pine planks. It was into this enclosure that the truck was dumping the gravel, releasing clouds of gritty dust.
Isabelle hammered on the driver’s window. He turned to her, surprise showing on his face through the dusty glass. In the next instant, he switched off the hydraulic lift and rolled down his window.
He touched his cap. “Mrs. Boisvert?”
“Yes. Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He jerked a massive thumb towards the pit. “Phil Scott. I spoke with your husband last night, eh?”
“But you weren’t supposed to do this till next week. Not today!”
“I know, but we had a look at it this morning. It’s not a big job, and I had a bit of time to spare. Sandy Fitzpatrick said it would be okay to go ahead.”
“This was Sandy’s idea?”
“Well, no. But we had a look at it, eh, and we just thought... I mean, Sandy sai
d you shouldn’t have to be out here yourself digging it up with your bare hands.”
Isabelle scanned the yard in dismay. Except for a few stray canes of raspberry still strewn on the ground, there was no sign that the thicket had ever been there. Nor the axe and the cow bone. She felt her autonomy being bulldozed by a pair of Neanderthal country men.
“But what happened to all the wood?” she blustered. “I was going to have a bonfire.”
“Oh, we took that this morning. Brought my little cat in and loaded the truck up. Raspberry canes and that don’t make a good fire anyway, eh?”
He was leaning out the window, his tone the essence of courtesy but his eyes unreadable behind sunglasses. He made it sound as if their actions had been completely sensible—just country folk offering a helping hand—and indeed Jacques had arranged the job the night before. Damn him for not informing Phil Scott of the change in plans.
“Well, Phil, I appreciate you trying to help, but we’re not sure about the garage yet. I’m kind of thinking of a pool here.”
Scott brightened. No doubt seeing the dollar signs. “A swimming pool?”
“No, just a little fish pond.”
Scott leaned his chin on his tattooed forearms and peered solemnly around the yard. “Bad place for a fish pond. Wind likely whips through here pretty strong, straight across them fields. You’d be better to put the pond in the lee of the house. Put a patio and all in there too. That’s where the Pettigrews used to have their firepit and picnic table.”
Isabelle looked at the pile of gravel sitting in the centre of the yard. He was right, damn him. In her frustration, she had wanted to build a place of beauty where the ugly thicket had been, but it made much more sense to integrate the pool into a garden at the side of the house. Besides, considering all the spooky remnants of the past that she had unearthed in that spot, it was comforting to think that the whole mess was well buried beneath a foot of stones.
“I’ll help you dig your pond over there next week if you like,” Phil offered. “No extra charge than what was agreed last night. It’ll be nice to see this old place come to life again.”
Fifth Son Page 11
