Green sank back in his chair. “Damnit, Brian,” he muttered, “I know what you’re saying, and you may be right. But promotions aren’t everything, believe me. There are a hell of a lot of guys upstairs who’d rather be doing what you’re doing. Nothing beats the satisfaction of liking your work and knowing you do a good job.”
On that note, Sullivan hauled himself to his feet and paused at the door with a smile he only half meant. “Bullshit. Inspector,” he said before he walked out.
Thirteen
At eleven-thirty, when Green could stand the claustrophobia of the station no longer, he escaped instead into the noontime traffic jam of downtown Ottawa. A blustery rain battered the city, compounding his black mood as he bullied his way across the Pretoria Bridge and up towards Main Street. All the way, he cursed his stupidity. Sullivan was struggling with a very real crisis of faith in himself and in the force and deserved the understanding and respect of the one man who was probably his oldest and closest friend on the force. Yet he, Green, had offered nothing but vacuous crap! He’d been so dismayed by the prospect of losing Sullivan that he’d thought only of himself and offered the man not hope nor affirmation but platitudes. And now there was little hope of rectifying it, for Sullivan was a proud man who would take his own counsel in the privacy of his own thoughts. He was too professional not to continue to do an exemplary job on this case and others, but Green knew he would be quietly looking.
So lost in thought was Green that he failed to notice his surroundings until he drove past Bank Street and saw Robbie Pettigrew’s apartment building receding in his rainwashed rearview mirror. He did a loop back onto Bank Street and sat a few minutes in the front drive, contemplating the pouring rain. It depressed him even further to think of visiting a crippled old man in a hospital bed to inform him of his son’s death and to make him relive the tragedies of the past.
When Green finally mustered the courage to dash to the front door, a Muslim woman in traditional hijab was juggling several bags of groceries and a pair of overactive pre-schoolers while she searched her massive satchel for her key. Green’s helping hand with the bags earned him a shy nod and entrance to the lobby. Hence, he knocked on Robbie’s door unannounced and was surprised when a familiar, smoke roughened snarl emanated from within.
“Who is it?”
Sullivan had dropped Tom off at the Y, but the man had obviously made his own arrangements. Recovering quickly, Green introduced himself.
The door opened just far enough for Green to plant his toe in it, and Tom’s craggy, unshaven face filled the crack. “Well, if it ain’t the fucking cavalry.”
“Good morning, Tom. I’m here to see your brother Robert.”
“Ain’t here. Come back after five.” Tom started withdraw, then paused. “Better yet, I’ll get him to call you.”
“Well,” Green continued blithely, “my main goal is to talk to your father, who I understand is very frail, so I wanted to know if Robbie would like to accompany me. But maybe you can come instead.”
Tom recoiled. “Not on your life. What do you want to see him for?”
“I want to talk to him about Derek—about why he left, whether your father’s heard from him recently, whether he knew why Derek came back?”
Green saw panic flare briefly in Tom’s eyes before he wrestled his sullen disinterest back in place. “Waste of time. Derek wouldn’t have contacted the old man in a million years. They had a huge, knock-down, drag-out fist fight just before he left. And like always, Derek got the worst of it.”
Green wedged his toe even further in the doorway and leaned against the doorframe, trying to hide his excitement. Unconsciously, Tom had let the door drift open a few inches, and Green was anxious to keep him talking. “What was the fight about?”
Suspicion flashed across Tom’s face. “Ancient history, and none of your business.”
Green sighed. “Look, Tom, I’m not here to hassle you. I’m sure you’ve taken plenty of crap from the Toronto cops over the years, but frankly, any guy who’s trying to turn his life around no matter how fucked up it’s been, gets my vote. I’m just trying to close this case. Your brother ended up dead in a village he swore he’d never return to, and I’m trying to find out why. It’s all connected—why he left, why he came back, and what drove him to his death.”
That was only half the story, of course, but Green hoped the half truth would be enough to put Tom off his guard. He didn’t want Tom to know the police had any suspicion that Derek had been murdered or that Tom himself was a prime suspect. He kept his expression bland and expectant as Tom shifted from one foot to the other, running his hand through his stringy hair. Finally, Tom stepped back with a scowl. “Might as well come in, I’m due for a smoke anyway.”
Green followed him into Robbie’s little apartment, which was murky with cigarette smoke. A blanket lay neatly folded on the back of the couch, and the only sign of clutter was a pack of cigarettes and an overflowing ashtray on the coffee table. Tom pulled a cigarette from the pack and snapped open his lighter. As he sucked the smoke in deep, Green could almost see him uncoil.
“My little brother here’s a good example why a man should never get married. Two wives in six years, and both bled him dry.” Tom gestured around the shabby room. “Wife number one got the leather couch and chair, wife number two the flashy home entertainment centre. Next wife’ll probably take the bed right out from under him.” He blew a series of smoke rings toward the ceiling. “Poor sucker. At least I never married my women.”
Green eased himself onto the couch. “What about Derek?”
Tom froze, a smoke ring half formed.
“Was there a woman at the bottom of it all, Tom? Is that why he left?”
The smoke ring dissipated slowly upwards. “If there was, I didn’t know about her. He was probably banging half a dozen co-eds up on campus, but he never brought them home. He wasn’t that much of an idiot. Cow shit and a psycho brother would scare the crap out of any girl.”
“You saw him actually leave home that day? To catch a four-thirty bus out of Ottawa?”
Surprise flashed across Tom’s face. “How the hell did you know that?”
“We found some evidence at the farm.”
The surprise changed to sheer shock. Tom’s colour fled and his cigarette jerked in his hand. “What evidence?”
Green didn’t reply. “He was arranging to meet someone called S. Was that Sophia Vincelli?”
Tom jammed his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and turned to the kitchen. “Want a drink? Coke?” He disappeared and Green could hear cupboards banging and glass tinkling. He moved so that he could see Tom’s reaction.
“Was it Sophia Vincelli?”
Tom dropped ice cubes on the floor and groped around on his hands and knees to pick them up. Ash dripped from his cigarette onto the floor.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Take it however the fuck you want. I don’t know what Derek was doing, or who he was fucking. Only that he was getting the hell out.”
“Along with the note, we found a love letter written by you to Sophia.” The author of the letter was a guess, but the handwriting had been clumsy and unpractised, much more Tom’s style than Derek’s.
Tom stood up and tossed the ice cubes in the sink with a resounding crash. “It give you your jollies, Detective?”
“Sophia never saw it, you know. Lawrence stole it.”
“He was a laugh a minute.”
“Looked like you loved Sophia a lot.”
Tom shrugged. “I hardly remember. My dick was permanently up in those days.”
“I saw her picture. She was one hell of a beautiful girl.”
“Ah-h, she’s probably a fat bitch with ten kids by now.”
“Still, it was no fun having your big brother steal your girl out from under your nose.”
The tell-tale twitch had begun at the side of Tom’s eye. “He wouldn’t have lasted. He was too goody-goody for her tastes.”
>
“What about Lawrence? Did he like Sophia too?”
“How the fuck should I know! He spooked her good, that much I know. Why all these questions about Sophia anyway? We’re talking twenty years ago!”
“Because Sophia left town at the same time as Derek. Do you have any idea where she went?”
“You’re thinking she went with Derek?”
“I don’t know. Did she?”
Tom dropped new ice cubes into his coke and shook his head with disgust. “You must think I read minds or something. ‘How did Lawrence feel?’ ‘Did Derek run off with Sophia?’ Looks like you know more than me. Lawrence stole my letter to Sophia and the note about her meeting Derek. Sounds like nobody got what they were supposed to, so who gives a fuck anyway?”
A key rattled in the lock, and the apartment door burst open, spilling Robbie into the room. He stopped abruptly at the sight of Green, a look of guilty fear crossing his face. Why do I always have that effect, Green wondered, before extending a hearty handshake. “Robbie, just the man I came to see.”
“Your sergeant’s already called. I’m just getting it.”
“What?”
“The photo album. He called me at the store.” Robbie scurried over to the bookcase and extracted the album. “He’s meeting me at the store. I’m not sure why you need it now that Tom has identified Derek. Tom and I were talking...we’d like to take him back to the country to bury him with Benji and Mom as soon as possible.”
“Have you told your father yet?”
Robbie had been heading back towards the door, and he stopped, clutching the album to his chest. “I’m not sure there’s much point. It would just upset him.”
“He needs to know, Robbie.”
“Why? His health is so fragile. He can’t talk or walk or feed himself. He just sits in his wheelchair and cries. It’s awful.”
“Can he understand what is said to him?”
“Simple things, I suppose. He can nod and shake his head, he can point to what he wants. But when he tries to talk, it’s just a garbled mumble that I can’t understand, and then he gets so frustrated he bangs his wheelchair and cries. I can’t see the point of telling him.”
Green thought about his own father, who was able to walk and talk but who was still so easily upset by the indignities of old age. Sid Green would hate to be bypassed. “All the same, he’s Derek’s father—”
“For God’s sake, Inspector!” Tom exclaimed, breaking the silence he’d maintained since Robbie’s arrival. “Our father hasn’t seen Derek in twenty years. He thinks he’s happily settled some place in the States. Derek was the one success story in this fucked-up family. What goddamn good would it do to tell him his golden boy just took a dive off the church tower? Especially that church!”
Robbie gave Tom a puzzled look and Green jumped in to seize the valuable tidbit about the past. “Why especially that church?”
Tom settled onto the couch and lit another cigarette. Robbie’s lips drew down in disapproval, which Tom pretended not to notice. “Reverend Taylor’s church,” he said with a snort. “We used to belong, before our old man decided it was too soft on sin. The old man likes his hellfire and brimstone, none of this turn the other cheek and the meek shall inherit the earth crap.”
“So your family left the church?”
“Taylor was a half-senile old geezer who loved to take all the losers under his wing. Drunks, psychos, fags. One day Taylor did a sermon on how they were all God’s children who just needed our help to return to the fold, and our old man walked out in the middle. Dragged us all straight across the street to the holy rollers. I remember, because I was toking a shitload of weed every week by then, and the old man told me he didn’t care what that pinko faggot minister said, I was going straight to hell.”
Green thought about Derek’s body at the bottom of Taylor’s church tower, and an idea began to take form. Whatever the reason for Derek’s death, perhaps he had gone there to seek out an old refuge in his time of despair. “Did you all go to the new church then?”
Tom whipped his head back and forth. “The minister was a mean old bible-thumper with a glass eye that looked right through you. One shot of that was enough for Derek and me.”
“What about Lawrence?”
“That’s when he really started to go off the rails. He’d listen to old glass-eye’s bible thumping sermons, and he’d take it word for word. Taylor kind of accepted Lawrence, and it didn’t matter if he started mumbling or wandering around in the middle of the service. Taylor took him under his wing, gave him little jobs like polishing the brass and putting out prayer books. Even taught him how to ring the bell. But our old man put a stop to that. Between him and the glass-eyed Nazi, they turned him into their own fucking warrior of God.”
Robbie stared at him. “I barely remember any of that. So strange to think of Dad going every week to church. After Benji died, he never set foot in one again. Mum tried, but...” He trailed off, but Green knew exactly what he’d left unsaid. As Edna had said, Katherine Pettigrew had little energy for anything by the time her end drew near.
A strange spell of shared pain seemed to settle over the brothers, which Green was reluctant to break. But a second later, Robbie himself broke it by thrusting the album into Green’s hands. “Anyway, now that you’re here, you can take this to Sergeant Sullivan, and I’ll get back to work.” He cast Tom a wary glance as he headed back toward the door. Green suspected he didn’t entirely trust his brother alone in his home.
“Actually, Robbie,” Green said, “I’m headed to the hospital. I need to interview your father.”
That stopped Robbie in his tracks. “What for?”
“Background on Derek. Perhaps your father has his address in the States.”
“But I told you, he can’t talk!” Robbie protested. “And the shock could bring on another stroke.”
“Then one of you come with me.”
Robbie glanced at his watch in dismay, but before he could object, Tom jumped in. “I’ll come.”
Robbie’s eyebrows shot up in bewilderment. “You said you didn’t ever want to see him.”
“This is different,” Tom muttered. “Can’t have the cop crawling all over him.”
I’d have thought you’d consider that a just punishment, Green thought, but kept silent. Left to bounce off each other, the brothers were providing a wealth of background material.
“But Tom...” A dubious look crept into Robbie’s pale blue eyes.
“I’m not going to upset him, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Tom held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sober, okay? The old man and I will have a grand old time. I’ll be on my best behaviour, and he won’t be able to say a fucking word. It’ll be a first for both of us.”
* * *
Throughout most of the car ride along Riverside Drive and up Bronson Avenue to Carling, Tom chain-smoked in short, jerky puffs that filled Green’s car with clouds of smoke. The sprawling, multi-winged brick complex of the Civic Hospital had just come into view over the crest of the hill when he tossed the butt out the window and shrank down in his seat.
“This was a mistake.”
Green flicked on his turning signal to enter the parking lot. “I thought you wanted to keep an eye on me.”
“But I haven’t seen the bastard in ten years. I hate his guts and he hates mine, and nothing’s happened to make me change my mind.”
“Tom, he’s just a sick old man.”
Tom fumbled in his pocket and pulled out another cigarette, this one bent and partially smoked. He lit it with shaky fingers. “You think. He’s like old cowhide, just grows tougher the older he gets. The last time I actually talked to him was at my brother Benji’s funeral. We were both so goddamn wasted, we could have killed each other. He never pulled any punches. Said it was my fault, because I let the kid down. After all that happened, all that fucking bastard made us do, he has the nerve to say I killed Benji!”
Green quickly rethought his pla
ns. Benji was the son he knew almost nothing about, but who seemed to foreshadow the family’s disintegration like a canary in a mine. Was there more to his death than a simple accident on a deserted stretch of road? Green navigated the car through the parking lot and drew up to the curb near the entrance. Slapping an official police card on the dash, he turned to Tom.
“How about we grab a fast coffee before we go up? Let you catch your breath.”
Tom managed a twisted smile. “Got a shot of rye under that jacket?” He climbed out of the car, then eyed his half smoked butt. “I bet they don’t even let you smoke in this hell hole.”
Green steered him inside and along the broad corridor to the coffee shop. He bided his time as they purchased their coffees and selected a table. Tom was as twitchy as a cat, so Green chose his timing with care. Once both were settled back with their coffees, he picked up the topic as if it had never been dropped.
“I thought your brother Ben died in a car crash, so what could you have to do with it? Were you there?”
Tom stirred his coffee for the fourth time. Picked an invisible crumb off the table. “The road was straight, the night was clear, and Benji knew that stretch of highway like the back of his hand. Plus there wasn’t an inch of skid mark on the road. You judge.”
“You’re saying he ran into that tree deliberately?”
“Hey, it’s a great family tradition.”
“Why?”
Tom sipped his coffee in short gulps. “Why what?”
“Why would he kill himself?”
“Twenty-one years in that family not good enough?”
“You said ‘after all your father made us do’. What did he make you do?”
Tom said nothing, merely continued to gulp at his coffee as if it were single malt whisky. Perhaps in his mind it was. In the background, the hospital PA system droned out the names of doctors. Finally, Tom shoved his chair back and stood.
“Well, let’s get this circus over with. I got places to go.”
Green wanted to ask where, but knew Tom wouldn’t tell him. Besides, that really was none of his business. He was investigating a crime, and although he was not exactly sure what crime, he did know it did not entitle him to question every move his witnesses made. So he tossed out his coffee cup and followed Tom down the hall.
Fifth Son Page 16
