This Thing of Darkness

by Barbara Fradkin

  “Good. Call to see if he has recent X-rays.” Levesque left the young man dialling his cell while she turned her attention back to the correspondence on the dead man’s desk. Green resumed his stroll around the apartment, not gathering impressions this time, but searching for clues to the son’s identity. Photos or letters. There was a large portrait of a woman he assumed to be the late wife hanging on the living room wall, and several photos of her in silver frames on the dining table and desk. She was always hamming it up, as if she hated formality and enjoyed teasing the photographer. To Green’s surprise, however, there was not a single photo of a boy or younger man, nor of small children who might be grandchildren.

  Green thought about his own father, an elderly widower , for whom Green, Sharon and the children were his whole world. Every spare surface in Sid Green’s small senior’s apartment was proudly covered with photos. In contrast, Sam Rosenthal’s apartment felt extraordinarily lonely.

  As he stood in the centre of the bedroom, he noticed piles of boxes stored at the back of the closet. Shoe boxes of old correspondence, cartons of old clothes, and at the very back, an old dusty banker’s box tucked beneath a plastic bin of winter scarves.

  He dragged the box into the room and peered inside at the yellowed stack of old files, inwardly cheering at the sight of the word “Will” scrawled across the tab of one of them. Inside was a sheaf of legal-sized papers, with the words “The last will and testament of Samuel Yitzak Rosenthal” printed in old-fashioned script across the front page. He pulled out the papers and scanned for the date: November 16, 1999. Written not long after his wife’s death, it was probably his most recent will.

  Green flipped rapidly through the pages, noting that Rosenthal had named the lawyer who’d drafted the will as executor of the estate. The executor was instructed to sell his property, pay all the bills and distribute the remainder of the estate as follows.

  Large sums had been bequeathed to charities. Three were predictable—$100,000 each to the Rideau Psychiatric Hospital, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the United Way—all of which helped troubled people in need. But others, like the Humane Society and the Bytown Association of Rescued Canines, were unexpected. Green had seen no sign of pets in the apartment.

  Besides the half million dollars to various charities, two million were to be used to endow the Evelyn Rosenthal Memorial Chair in cancer research at the University of Ottawa. Green wondered if the man had been grateful for the care his wife had received at the Ottawa Hospital or if he’d found it profoundly lacking.

  The final page was most telling of all. Whatever crumbs were left over after the disposition of the specific bequests, had been left to the son, David Joseph Rosenthal. By Green’s rough calculations based on the worth of the house and the investments, that was still close to two million. Hardly pocket change. However, a line had been drawn through his son’s name and the word “no” had been scrawled over it. Green’s excitement surged.

  He took the will into the living room, where the junior detective had made little headway with the pile of papers on the floor.“Here’s the will, the son’s name, and the lawyer. A lot was left to charities, but the rest is slated for his son. But I think you’ll find the last page interesting.”

  Sergeant Levesque plucked the will from Green’s hands. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the back of the closet.” Green could see that she was bewildered and suspicious, but unwilling to challenge the serendipity of his find. He shrugged. “Old people have their quirks. My father hides his passport and bank records in a cavity under the floorboards as if he’s still in the Warsaw ghetto.”

  Levesque scanned the will, arching her eyebrows briefly at the last page before setting the will aside. “I will follow this up, of course, and contact the lawyer for the son’s address. But the will doesn’t seem too relevant to our investigation at this time. We have a whole list of gang members to check out first.”

  “Beneficiaries are always relevant in a homicide investigation.”

  “He’s been a beneficiary since 1999. I don’t see why he’d suddenly decide to kill his father now.”

  Green frowned at her. “It looks as if his father may have had second thoughts. And the son needs to be investigated, whether Rosenthal wanted him disinherited or not.” He studied the resentment and uncertainty on her face and tried to soften his tone. “The way the economy is now, the son may have fallen on hard times and recently incurred huge debts.”

  She flipped her ponytail in exasperation.“With due respect, sir, we don’t know what that ‘no’ means. Maybe the father was angry, then later regretted it. It was all a long time ago.”

  “I’ll give you more men, if that’s an issue.”

  “It is not an issue. Priorities are the issue. For sure this son will get my attention, along with all the gang punks in the city.” She caught herself and forced a tight smile. “But thank you for the offer, sir. I will let Staff Sergeant Sullivan know if I need it.”

  Green caught the borderline insubordination in the woman’s retort and was tempted to call her on it, but stopped himself. She was like looking in a mirror, ten years ago, when he thought he knew everything. If she was as good as Sullivan believed, she would learn better soon enough.

  Green forced himself to behave for the rest of the day, and by five o’clock he had a passable action plan drafted for Superintendent Devine to address the spike in domestic assaults. It would never be implemented, of course, but that wasn’t the point. It was ammunition for debates on the police budget at City Council, not to mention feathers for Barbara Devine’s Deputy Chief nest. Of course, the real way to prevent the spike would be to get rid of September, with all the stresses it placed on families after the casual, relaxed days of summer. He and Sharon had only two children, of very disparate ages, and yet they felt the stress of finding new schools, resuming full-time work hours, and juggling after-school activities.

  To Green’s astonishment, Tony was going to kindergarten, and Hannah, true to her word, was trying out full-time Grade Twelve in the regular neighbourhood high school. For the occasion, she was letting her hair grow out, transforming the orange-tipped spikes into softer waves. She’d cut back on the black eye-liner and heroin-addict make-up, allowing her freckles and innocent hazel eyes to shine through. For the first time, Green saw not only his mother but himself in her face.

  Naturally, the transformation required a new wardrobe. Hannah was a social animal astute enough to recognize that black rags and metallic studs would not earn her acceptance with the earnest children of the organic-food, eco-conscious set in their neighbourhood. Tony too needed brand new clothes, since last winter’s wardrobe was now several inches too short. The strain on their family budget and their time was enormous.

  In fact it was Green’s turn to pick up Tony from the sitter and take him to The Bay for a fashion outing that Sharon had dubbed a father-son bonding experience, no doubt with tongue firmly in cheek. Green’s fashion sense did not extend beyond matching his cleanest pants to his favourite T-shirt, and Tony’s two-minute attention span, together with his determination to do as he pleased, made any excursion a test of endurance and willpower.

  Sometimes domestic assault was a simple matter of tipping the balance too far.

  Nonetheless, Green had managed to outline a five-point action plan for Devine that involved changes to police response at several levels, from first responding through laying of charges, and he’d thrown in enough buzz words— community partnerships, alternative dispute resolution, strategic intervention—that Devine would be salivating. He was just locking up his desk when he heard the elevator open and saw Brian Sullivan stride out, the tell-tale hint of high blood pressure on his dusky face. Sullivan spotted him and veered over, his colour deepening further. Green wondered if Levesque had complained again. He decided on a preemptive strike.

  “You’re here late! The autopsy done?”

  Sullivan flopped in the guest chair with a groa
n. “Just came from there.”

  “And?”

  “The man was healthy for his age. Some arthritis in his left hip which might have slowed him down a bit, but otherwise strong and fit.”

  “Explains the cane. So what was the cause of death?”

  “Blunt force trauma to the head. Repeated blunt force trauma, a dozen blows in total as near as MacPhail can tell. Fractured his skull, his jaw, some ribs and his collarbone.”

  “Same instrument or several?”

  “That’s hard to tell from the hamburger that was left. MacPhail’s taken lots of photos, so he’ll take a closer look.”

  Green winced at the image. “Any specs on the type of instrument?”

  “Again, he has to examine his tissue samples, but there’s nothing obvious to the naked eye. Something cylindrical and about five centimetres thick—about the size and shape of a baseball bat.”

  “Not something that’s readily at hand on Rideau Street unless you brought it along.” Green mulled it over. Drug dealers and other punks normally didn’t carry baseball bats or obvious weapons that might draw attention to themselves. They preferred knives and guns. More deadly and easily slipped into the belt out of sight.

  Sullivan’s scowl was easing, and his dusky colour was fading, as if he’d forgotten to be annoyed. “It may make it easier to find witnesses. Somebody walking along with a baseball bat would stand out.”

  “I don’t remember any of those kids on the tape carrying baseball bats.”

  “But we couldn’t see them all clearly. Sergeant Levesque is going to break the tape into stills, see if we can see anything.”

  Green visualized the sequence of the assault. Rosenthal had tried to fend off his attacker with his cane before the killer got a good swing in. The earlier blows were likely less forceful, the latter ones would have produced the carnage.

  “It would take a strong person to hit hard enough to break his skull like that,” he said.

  “Strong or enraged.” Sullivan paused. “Some of the blows were post-mortem. The one that likely killed him was to the base of his neck, delivered when he was already lying down. Snapped his neck.”

  Green tasted bile. “Coward. Attacking an old man in the first place, then hitting him when he’s down. This wasn’t a simple mugging, Brian. This was an assassination.”

  Sullivan ran his broad hand through his bristly hair, frowning dubiously.“Well, it might have started as a mugging, but when Rosenthal resisted, the killer lost it. Maybe Rosenthal got a good hit in, and the attacker saw red.”

  Green was silent. He knew Sullivan was right. They’d both seen enough bloody destruction to appreciate the power of flash rage. But to keep hitting once the old man was already down, already dead, suggested a dangerously unstable man. Green finally broke into their grim thoughts. “What’s his calculation on time of death?”

  “More or less what we figured. Sometime between midnight and four a.m. Sunday morning.”

  “Anything else of note?”

  “We got the dental records, and we’ve couriered everything over to the forensic odontologist. Probably have a confirmed ID by Wednesday. MacPhail says Rosenthal had an iron constitution and kept himself well. Even got regular pedicures. Heart, liver and arteries all in excellent shape, would have lived another ten years. Even had all his own teeth. ‘A lifetime of clean living, the silly bugger’ is what the old Scot announced when he was finished.”

  Both men laughed, grateful for the lighter mood. MacPhail would see that as a lifetime of wasted opportunities. But in Green’s mind, it all fit with the image that was beginning to form, of a thoughtful, philosophical man who had few vices and took meticulous care of himself.

  None of which explained what he was doing walking along Rideau Street during the most dangerous small hours of the night.

  Six

  Stop the Carnage!” The Tuesday morning headline stopped Omar cold. He was just heading to the cash with the bottle of laundry detergent his mother had asked him to buy and the jumbo bag of chips that was his reward. She wouldn’t know about the pack of DuMauriers he’d pick up too. Using his own money, so what business was it of hers? What other twenty-year-old man was grounded to the house for a month anyway?

  It had been less than three days, but he was already going insane. He’d practically begged his mother to let him go to the store for her. She was as scared of his father as he was, so it had taken some persuading, but when the old man went off to work that morning, she’d slipped Omar some house money and sent him up to Rideau Street.

  His mother didn’t read English, and his father said the newspapers were all lies, so there weren’t any in the house. Since part of his punishment was no TV, he hadn’t heard any news either. That headline was the first he’d learned of the old man’s death on Saturday night. That fucking black-hole Saturday night.

  The Ottawa Sun screamed the headline in its usual half-page type, followed up with more hype. “Roaming gangs to blame in senior’s death.” Beside that, there was a photo of a building with a body sprawled against it. Details were fuzzy so it took Omar a moment to recognize Rideau Street, but then fear shot through him. He pretended to be cool as he bent to look at the more conservative Ottawa Citizen on the rack below. No headlines about gangs, but a recap of the progress the police were making into the brutal beating. “We are looking at video footage and at known gang members operating in the vicinity,” some cop was quoted as saying.

  Video footage. Fuck! Omar nearly bolted from the store. He snatched up the paper, and it took all his willpower to put his stuff down at the cash and wait for his change. He completely forgot about the cigarettes.

  Back at the house, he shut himself in his room and read the story five times, his brain refusing to take it all in. This was bad. The guy had been beaten with a bat over a dozen times, even after he was dead. His body was pulverized, then robbed. An innocent old guy out for a walk, just minding his own business. Omar felt a dumb surge of anger. Well, that was the old man’s first mistake. What the hell was he thinking, going out for a walk on Rideau Street in the middle of the fucking night?

  Then he felt guilty for the anger. The old man’s actions may not have been too smart, but no way he deserved to get beaten to death. This wasn’t Somalia, where his father said your life was in your hands every second, where just to show your face in the wrong place to the wrong person could mean a machete or a strafe of bullets. Which was why his mother never complained about his father, no matter what he did, because he’d rescued her from that. Picked her from all the village girls in the camp, brought her back here when he transferred back to Canada. Omar had already been born by then, but not too many soldiers married the village women they’d fooled around with.

  His father said it was a matter of honour after the things the military had done in Somalia, and maybe that was true. His father still sent half his money over there for a village school. But Omar knew it wasn’t that simple. His dad liked to be king of the heap, and he knew he had them all by the short and curlies.

  He raised his head from the newspaper. How many times had he asked himself if they’d have been better off if the old man had left them in Somalia? He knew the answer, but it was a game he played whenever the bastard tightened the screws. Martial law, that’s what this was. Once a soldier, always a soldier, and his father had been with the worst. The government hadn’t disbanded the Airborne Regiment after Somalia because the guys had handed out lollipops. They knew all about beating. And killing.

  Omar wrenched his thoughts back to Saturday night. He raked his memory. He remembered something metal, something shiny like a knife. But not a baseball bat. Who the hell had been carrying a baseball bat? A knife could be concealed, but a bat was pretty fucking long to hide under your shirt. Not to mention uncomfortable when you’re sitting down. He tried to picture the four of them sprawled on the grass in Macdonald Gardens, smoking weed and talking about getting laid. He remembered jokes about the size of their hard-ons, about how
far up a girl they could go. If anyone had had a baseball bat, it would have come out then.

  Omar shook his head, feeling a bit better. It was possible one of them had picked up a baseball bat later during their walk, but not likely. Not too many baseball bats lying around in alleyways around here, especially when it wasn’t even garbage day.

  He heard his mother’s soft bare feet on the stairs. Quickly he folded up the newspaper and stuffed it under his mattress. He pulled his math textbook out of his bag and had just flipped it open when there was a light tap on his door. As always, his mother waited silently outside his door until he opened it. She was tall, and even after four kids—plus two who died in the refugee camp, but no one ever talked about them—she didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.

  Even inside the house, she kept herself wrapped head to toe in browns and blacks. His father sometimes bought her bright scarves and pretty clothes, but they sat in her closet. She looked at Omar now with her huge, sad eyes.

  “You have laundry?” she asked in English.

  He glanced around his room. His brothers had left their own clothes strewn around, but Omar’s own corner was army shipshape. Just one more sign of his father’s double standard. He handed her his bag of laundry, then remembered the clothes from Saturday night, still in a ball at the back of his closet. He said nothing.

  She peered into the small bag and frowned. “Your jeans?”

  Panic shot through him. “I’ll check if they’re dirty, I’ll bring them down to you.”

  She went out and he closed the door. He ran to the closet and fished out the clothes. They were stiff with dried blood now and gave off a sickening smell. They were probably a write-off, except his father would ask him where they’d gone. He could make some excuse, but he’d never hear the end of it. The jeans had cost good money and were nearly new. He shook them out and peered at them in the light from the window. Against the dark blue fabric, it was hard to tell the stains were blood. They could have been...