Honour Among Men

by Barbara Fradkin

  “Is this the woman you call Patti Oliver?”

  The man spread the pictures on the bar and bent over them in the dim light. After a long look, he shoved them away. “She’s dead.”

  “Murdered.”

  “Shit.”

  Peters opened her notebook. “What did you talk to her about?”

  “This and that. Her boyfriend that died. How she had a ticket to even the score, right here in this town.”

  “Even the score. Those were her words? What did she mean?”

  “Beats me. She was playing things pretty close to her chest. But she was asking questions about the base, and did I know the guys who served in Croatia. And also the election. Kind of weird, that, wanting to know the background of the guys who were running. I don’t follow that shit, but some of the men are pretty excited about it this time. So—”

  “Hey, officer!” It was the bartender calling. She looked up to see him standing at the phone near the door. “Your partner called. He wants you to meet him outside ASAP, around the back where you parked the car.”

  Peters cursed. Moron, she thought, blowing my cover like that. And what the hell is this ASAP shit? Couldn’t he wait till I’m done my first stop?

  She shoved the photos back into her purse and turned to the guy at the bar. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back once I deal with this. And the next beer’s on me.”

  She stomped out of the dark bar and paused, blinded for a moment by the bright afternoon sun. After getting her bearings, she headed for the car.

  Muttering, “Okay, asshole, this had better be good.”

  FOURTEEN

  June 23, Sector West, Croatia.

  Dear Kit . . . Only eight days till my UN leave and I can’t wait to see you, hang out at the farm, watch TV, go to a movie. Man, just to take a walk down the lane without checking for mines! It’s been boring here, sitting at the hot dog stand all day. The rules have changed, which is frustrating. We’re not supposed to confiscate weapons any more, we’re supposed to ask the belligerents nicely if they’d like to give them up. Like that’s going to happen!

  So the other day a bunch of Serbs walked in and took all their rifles and grenades out of the cache we had them in, and we couldn’t do a fucking thing. I thought the Hammer was going to have a stroke. He’s on the radio screaming to the OC, but that’s the orders from the new Sector West commander. Jordanian guy. I don’t know about this multi-national idea, seems like the Canadians are the only ones who know what we’re doing. So of course the Croats start screaming favouritism and they haul out their guns too. And all our hard work getting the place calmed down so you could walk around without shells flying over your heads, that’s all going to be down the tubes.

  On the bright side, our section beat 3 Section at soccer yesterday. Afterwards at the mess, Sarge did a little dance on the table again. From a strict religious Prairie boy, he’s getting to be the life of the party. And another good thing, Fundy has made a real difference to the mines. She finds them better than the engineers, and she gets such a kick out of it. Big smile on her face and her tongue hanging out as she waits for her treat. Yesterday she was tagging along with Mahir and she spotted one buried right on the path he uses every day to get home.

  Sue Peters was being airlifted to the Ottawa Hospital on advanced life support. By the time the helicopter was scheduled to touch down at seven-fifteen, Green had already been on the phone with the military police, the Petawawa OPP and the Pembroke Hospital. He’d spoken to everyone from the first officer on the scene to the doctors who had tried to patch her together. He’d briefed Barbara Devine and prepared a short statement for the press.

  He knew everything that had happened from the moment Peters’ battered body had been discovered inside an abandoned railway warehouse, but not a damn thing about how she got there. Constable Weiss had been nearly incoherent when questioned by the local police, and doctors had stuffed him full of tranquillizers before packing him into the back of an OPP cruiser and shipping him off to Ottawa.

  By seven o’clock, Elgin Street Headquarters was teeming with people. Off-duty officers, on hearing the news, had reported in to learn the latest details, to volunteer for extra duty, or simply to be among their own. Coordination between the various police services involved had now gone up the chain of command to Barbara Devine, but when she phoned down to demand that Green come upstairs to a meeting with herself and the local brass from the military and provincial police services, he refused.

  “I’ve got a critically injured officer landing at the Civic Campus in less than fifteen minutes. That’s where I’m needed, Barbara. You guys decide how this is going to be run.” He paused as he caught sight of Bob Gibbs pacing back and forth across the squad room, talking to a rapt group of detectives. It looked as if the whole Major Crimes Unit, and quite a few of the other units, had come to commiserate. Nothing was worse than an officer down. These guys needed to be involved. “Just make sure you put me on any joint task force you create.”

  To her credit, Devine did not protest. It seemed even she understood this was one time when bureaucracy took a back seat. Green hung up, grabbed his jacket and headed out into the squad room to round up Gibbs. Throughout the entire car ride from Elgin Street to the Civic Hospital, the young detective talked non-stop, reviewing over and over the details of the investigation to date. His speculations made no sense, but Green let him talk. Exhaustion and self-recrimination would take over soon enough.

  The helicopter was just flying into view when they drove up to the landing site, which sat at the edge of a field across Carling Avenue from the hospital. In the darkness, lights and vehicles appeared to be everywhere. A circle of lights marked the landing pad, and a ground ambulance sat by the tarmac, lights flashing and stretcher ready. Green had the ridiculous thought that it would probably be faster to wheel the stretcher across Carling Avenue to the hospital on foot.

  At the entrance to the landing field, a burly ground crew worker flagged him to a stop, ignored Green’s badge and waved them over to the parking lot of the hospital emergency department across the street. “You’ll have to check in at Admissions, sir,” he shouted over the deafening roar of the helicopter. Dust and wind swirled in the air. “They’ll want some information.”

  Green parked in a restricted area closest to the door, slapped a police sticker on the dash and led Gibbs inside to the Admissions Desk in Emergency, which was right next to the ambulance bay. Heavy metal swing doors separated the admissions area from the unloading area, however, so they only caught a fleeting glimpse of Peters’ still form as the stretcher whisked by. White coats swirled around her, and a man’s voice snapped out her vital signs. The flurry of activity was over as quickly as it blew up, leaving no one left to ask.

  Green introduced himself to the admissions clerk and told her he’d like to speak to the doctor in charge as soon as he or she was available. The clerk gave him a brief, distracted nod before returning to her forms. The emergency room was filled with people slumped in chairs along the walls, talking in hushed whispers, reading, or simply staring into space. Several watched Green and Gibbs with idle curiosity.

  They never did see an ER physician, but about fifteen minutes later, the air ambulance crew emerged from behind the steel doors and stopped by to give them a report on their way back out to the helicopter. They looked grim.

  “She’s going straight up to surgery, sir,” said the senior paramedic. “The OR was all set up and waiting for her. But I don’t want to sugarcoat it. We got her here in very good time, and she had a carotid pulse when the surgical team took her up to the OR, and those are both positives. But she’s lost a lot of blood, and she sustained fairly extensive injuries to the head. Some bastard beat her up pretty bad.”

  Green listened with grim calm. He had already heard about the beating from the Petawawa OPP, but Gibbs’s reaction stopped him from asking further details. The young man suddenly swayed on his feet, and Green and the paramedic dived to catch hi
s arms before he slumped to the ground. With practised calm, the paramedic helped him to a chair, forced his head between his knees and ordered Green to get some water.

  When Green returned with the water, Gibbs was hunched forward, clutching his head in his hands and rocking from side to side. “I should never have sent her alone. What was I thinking? I should never have sent her alone.”

  Oh, shit, Green thought, the self-recrimination has started already. “And maybe I should never have gone to Halifax,” he interrupted. “But Bob—”

  “You should never have put me in charge.”

  Probably not, once I saw how ruthless the killer was, Green thought, but he forced his own self-doubts out of mind. He dragged out the only platitudes he could think of. Platitudes that had been fed to him six years earlier, and rang as true and as hollow now as they had then. “Bob, these things happen. We’re out there in danger every day. We make judgment calls on a wing and a prayer, and sometimes we’re wrong.”

  “But I knew she was inexperienced. I-I just didn’t have the balls to tell her no. She wanted it so bad.”

  “You followed proper procedure; you sent someone with her.”

  “Another mistake. Where the f-fuck was Weiss when this happened to her?”

  Where the fuck indeed, Green thought grimly. The man didn’t need to be a major crimes detective to know the basic premise of policing. Officer safety first. Never leave your partner’s back exposed. Constable Weiss had a hell of a lot to answer for when he finally made it back to Ottawa, no matter what his mental state.

  For now it was a waiting game. The hospital directed them to a more private room up on the surgical floor, and officers drifted in and out in search of news and moral support. As the evening dragged on, one of Gibbs’s friends took him down to the cafeteria for some food and Green used the opportunity to duck outside and update Sharon.

  The sky was clear, and a hint of frost clouded his breath, but he was glad of the fresh air. He shivered as he sat on the stone curb and filled her in. True to form, Sharon listened and said exactly what he needed to hear. Which was why he loved her, why he had fallen in love with her the first time he’d met her six years earlier, when she’d offered a listening ear to an overworked and overwhelmed sergeant dealing with the worst killing he’d ever encountered.

  “The fact she’s still in the OR is a good sign, honey,” she said now. “It means she’s hanging in, and they’re stitching her back together bit by bit.”

  Sucking in the cold, crisp night air, he managed a feeble laugh. “Let’s hope they find enough of the parts.”

  “You always said she was one tough, tenacious broad.”

  “But so young. So . . . blind.”

  “This is not your fault, honey. You can’t control every single minute of every single case.”

  “But the important ones, Sharon. The ones that could get my officers killed. I should control those.”

  “So you’ve taken up clairvoyance now, besides trying to control everyone’s life?” Her soft chuckle sounded through the phone, but when she resumed, her voice was gentler. “I could come down there and bring you a cup of tea. Give you a hug. Out of view of the troops, of course. On a dark street corner somewhere.”

  “A cup of tea and a hug would be wonderful. But I can’t leave here yet. Things have got to start happening soon.” He leaned back against the brick wall, picturing her tender chocolate eyes. “Sorry I missed Shabbat dinner. Did you pick up Dad?”

  “Yes. He missed you, but you know how much he adores Hannah. He’d pinched her cheeks raw by the end of the night.”

  “He’s the only one who could get away with that.” He felt a bittersweet pang. Hannah had been enchanted by her grandfather from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, but then her grandfather hadn’t deserted her sixteen years ago. He banished the twinge of envy; their domestic struggles seemed so inconsequential while Peters lay inside, dancing with death.

  “Well, give her forty years, and you’ll have earned the right too,” she said.

  He laughed as he hung up, his spirits lifted. Next he put in a call to update Barbara Devine and Gaetan Larocque, both of whom were still tied up in the meeting with the senior brass. When he returned to the waiting room, there was still no sign of the doctor, but there were half a dozen familiar faces. Gibbs was back, looking slightly less fragile. Perhaps some anger was beginning to take hold, for he marched straight over to Green. His jaw was tight.

  “Weiss is here. Asked how she was, then walked off. Not a word of explanation. Not even an apology.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “I can b-barely talk to the guy.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Gibbs nodded to a cluster of chairs at the far end of the room. Green turned to see a man leaning against the wall in the corner. His arms were crossed and his chin thrust out, as if in defiance. Green squared his shoulders and was just preparing to do battle when the swinging doors opened and two doctors emerged. They were dressed in stained hospital scrubs, and exhaustion was etched in their faces. The older, a man in his fifties with a polished bald pate and cadaverous cheekbones, introduced himself as Doctor Vargas and asked if the next of kin was present. To Green’s surprise, a young man rose from the corner. He was a male clone of Sue Peters, down to the frizzy red hair and the riot of freckles across his cheeks. Beneath the freckles, he was the colour of bleached flour as he approached the doctors.

  “I’m her brother, Mark Peters. How is she?”

  Vargas inclined his head noncommittally. “She’s a strong, healthy woman, and that’s got her this far. But her condition is still critical, and it will be touch and go for the next forty-eight hours. There are a few things we won’t know until she regains consciousness. If she does.”

  “If?”

  “She’s suffered significant trauma to the brain, and with brain injuries of this type, it can be weeks, even months, before we see the extent of the damage.”

  A collective groan rose from the officers who had clustered around to hear.

  “So you’re saying she could be . . . a vegetable?” Mark managed. His voice quavered.

  “Let’s get her through the next forty-eight hours before we worry about that.”

  Dr. Vargas went on to detail all the test results and surgical procedures they had performed, but after a while, Green’s mind glazed over. It really did sound as if they’d had to stitch her back together bit by bit.

  After the doctor’s departure, friends and colleagues gathered in clumps to talk in hushed tones, and Green noticed that Weiss was no longer there. Curious, he set off in search, starting with the corridor next to where the man had been standing. That corridor ended in a bank of doors, all of which were locked.

  He retraced his steps and tried another corridor, peeking into rooms along the way. Linen supplies, bathrooms, offices and more doors marked “authorized personnel only”. The corridor jogged and twisted at unexpected points, following the shape of the aging, multi-winged building. It came to an abrupt halt at a heavy steel door marked “exit”.

  Green yanked open the door and peered down a flight of iron stairs into the semi-gloom. There, sitting in the middle of the bottom stair, was Constable Weiss, hunched over, staring at his shoes. He didn’t stir when Green clanged down the stairs, didn’t even raise his head, but Green saw that his whole body was vibrating. Green’s anger softened a touch.

  “Jeff? What’s going on?”

  “Needed some air.”

  “I’m Mike Green, by the way.”

  Weiss gave a strangled grunt. “I know who you are. Come to tell me I’m a fuck-up, a moron, a disgrace to the uniform?”

  “What happened?”

  “I told all that to the cops up in Petawawa.”

  Green’s anger crashed back. He grabbed the man’s chin and jerked his head up to face him. “Listen, asshole, I don’t give a shit who else you told. I’m her superior officer, and you’re damn well going to tell me how you almost got h
er killed.”

  To his surprise, Weiss’s eyes flooded with tears. He twisted his head away and dashed his knuckles across his cheeks. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  “Talk to me!”

  “I can’t.” Weiss sucked in his breath and wrestled for control. “I don’t know what to say! I should have known it was a crazy idea, but she was the boss. No, that’s no excuse. I should have stopped her.”

  “You should have backed her up!” Green thundered.

  “It was a routine canvass. I thought she had everything under control.”

  “Canvass of what?”

  “Bars, restaurants . . . I took half, she took half.”

  “Bars! Why the hell were you canvassing in bars?”

  “We were trying to track the dead woman’s movements. Find out what she was after.”

  “So you left Peters alone in bars?”

  “It was three o’clock in the fucking afternoon!” Weiss shot back. “In a two-bit little town, not New York City.”

  “A two-bit town that might just harbour our murderer.”

  “Well, I—we—didn’t think of that.”

  “You goddamn well should have!”

  Abruptly Weiss sagged back against the step. Tears brimmed in his eyes again as he nodded his head up and down. “You’re right, you’re right. God, what a mess.” He plunged his face into his hands and began to rock.

  Green watched him in silence for a few minutes. Weiss’s reactions puzzled him. Not the grief itself, not the guilt, not even the flashes of defensive anger. But the extremes of them all, and the erratic swings from one to another like a man ricocheting free fall from one violent feeling to the next. Was the man unstable? Or was he faking it?

  Green squatted in front of him, willing him to return to the real world. He spoke grimly. “Jeff, tell me what you do know.”