This Thing of Darkness
Page 8
Reluctantly, the man returned to the photos. He moved along the line-up, then shook his head and shoved himself away. “Nope.”
Green thanked him, packed up the photos, and headed up the street. The yellow crime scene tape had been removed, although a small tatter of it still hung from the pole of a nearby bus stop. The alleyway had been hosed clean of all traces of blood and brains. People walked over the spot without a care, sneakers shuffling, snakeskin boots clicking, stilettos tapping a pert rhythm. A bus pulled up and disgorged another crowd, which surged forward over the place of the old man’s death.
Green walked over to the dusty patch of weeds where the body had been dragged. A short distance but still a very cold-blooded act when you’d just pulverised the man’s brain. The body had been rolled on its side against the concrete wall, likely so that it would appear to the casual passerby like a drunk sleeping it off.
This killer was cool and collected, anticipating the angles.
Green studied the concrete wall of the building. It was spray-painted with gang tags, like dogs marking a hydrant. The Market was a free-for-all. No turf was safe.
“Recognize them?” came a deep voice from behind him.
Green turned to see Sullivan. The big man was looking rumpled and tired, flushed, as if his blood pressure was up again. “Some,” Green said. “Not all. The city is getting new wannabe gangs every day.”
“I don’t think the tags have anything to do with the case,” Sullivan said. “None of the paint is fresh.”
“Still, are there any neo-Nazi tags among them?”
Sullivan frowned, his dusky colour deepening.“Neo-Nazi? Where did that come from?”
“Rosenthal was a Jew. That’s a target for some people, especially after a dozen beers.”
“Not obviously a Jew. No yarmulke.”
“Maybe they spotted the Star of David. Or, with his expensive clothes and jewellery, he looked as if he had money. For some, that stereotype is enough.”
Sullivan leaned against the wall, silhouetted against the midday press of Rideau Street. Belching transport trucks, growling buses, and lunch goers scurrying along the sidewalk. He studied Green thoughtfully. “I assume you have a reason for this line of inquiry?”
Green broke into a sheepish grin.“A couple of flimsy ones. The viciousness of the attack, the overkill, and the fact the killer stomped Rosenthal’s Jewish star into the ground. Didn’t steal it but destroyed it. It smacks of contempt.”
Sullivan raised an eyebrow. He looked skeptical, but he was too good a detective not to consider the less obvious. “I’ll ask the Hate Crimes guys if they have a lead on any Neo-Nazi groups hanging out around here.”
Green nodded. “Ask if there’s been any reports of vandalism or harassment. These guys don’t usually start with a full-fledged attack.”
They don’t usually end with one either, he thought with a chill.
Seven
Brian Sullivan was on his cellphone when their smoked meat sandwiches arrived, thick, fragrant and spilling over with succulent pink meat. Green picked his up in both hands, sank his teeth in and closed his eyes in ecstasy.
Sullivan glared and covered his mouthpiece. “Nothing should interfere with a man’s lunch.”
Green stifled a chuckle with his mouth full. “What are you talking about? At least we’re getting lunch. That’s progress.”
Sullivan was about to reply when the party came back on the other end of the line. He listened a moment, thanked the individual and snapped his phone shut. Without a word he picked up his sandwich and shovelled it into his mouth. Green watched him chew, shovel in another mouthful and slurp down half his coke.
“Nu?” Green said finally.
“Mmm?”
“What did Deepak say?”
“Not much. There have been no major anti-Semitic incidents in Lowertown recently. The usual spray-painted Swastikas, eggs thrown at the synagogue door, but nothing directed against people. There are some white power punks strutting around—you couldn’t call them a gang—but they’re mostly targeting blacks and Arabs.”
“Is it a similar MO? Beating with a baseball bat?”
Sullivan shook his head.“Mostly threats with knife or gun, sometimes a minor beating meant to scare the guys off. Or pay them back. Mind you, the Somalis are doing some nasty shit of their own.”
Green nodded, thinking of the high-profile case currently before the courts in which a young Somali had knifed a Lebanese youth allegedly for making a pass at his girlfriend. Too much testosterone and not enough purpose. However, he knew that most incidents of racism and anti-Semitism went unreported. Whether from fear of further retaliation or lack of confidence in the police response, most victims just shrugged and endured.
He persisted. “Did these white power punks have unusual tags, like the ones at the crime scene?”
“Deepak is emailing me their most common graffiti, and we’ll take it from there.” Sullivan belched, then fished a Rolaids from his pocket and popped it into his mouth with a rueful smile. “Can’t do this like the old days.”
They ate in silence, savouring the last of their sandwiches. After a few minutes, Deepak’s email of recent graffiti popped up on Sullivan’s cellphone. The two men scrolled through the tiny attachments. Art, or subtlety, was not the Neo-Nazis’ strong point. Most of the tags were stylized swastikas or the skull-and-crossbones insignia of Hitler’s SS. None of them looked like the graffiti on the wall at the crime scene. But Green couldn’t dispel his sense of unease.
“I think Sergeant Levesque should get photos of that graffiti over to the Hate Crimes Unit anyway. See if we can connect it to any group here or elsewhere.”
“Waste of time, but why not?” Sullivan shrugged as he drained his coke. With a grin, he wiped his lips and crumpled up his napkin. “This buys you a bit of wasted time. Thanks, Mike.”
Green suppressed his annoyance. “Muslims can get into some pretty serious anti-Semitism too,” he added. “Including the scary belief that all Jews are legitimate targets in the holy war to destroy Israel.”
“That’s what most anti-Semitic incidents are about these days. Muslim kids, not white power punks. Must be nice to be so popular.”
Green managed a wry smile. “As they say, couldn’t God choose someone else for a change? I’m not saying it was an anti-Semitic attack. Just that it’s an angle we shouldn’t overlook.”
Sullivan gathered up his cellphone and his jacket. “I’ll pass it on. She’s good, Green. Let her do her job.”
Green watched the big man thread his way through the crowded tables. He looked marginally more relaxed now, but Green knew he had a lot on his plate, with several dozen active cases to supervise and other units to liaise with. Unlike Green, who trusted no one to work a case as well as him, Sullivan was a natural leader who thrived on coordinated teamwork. However, Sergeant Levesque also had a lot on her plate. Green didn’t doubt that she would follow up, but he chafed at the low priority she was likely to assign to the anti-Semitism angle. It would be a simple matter for Green to find out whether Jews were being targeted in the old inner-city neighbourhood, which had once been heavily Jewish but was now taken over by more recent immigrant groups.
Rabbi Tolner looked surprised to see him for the second time in two days. This time Green found him in the shed at the back of his building, oiling his bicycle. A colourful knitted yarmulke had slipped a little on his bald pate.
“I should be getting paid. Police consultant,” he laughed, wiping his greasy hands on a rag hanging on the handlebar. “Any word on who killed Sam?”
Green shook his head and chose his words carefully. Tolner had a love of gossip and far too much time on his hands. For someone as energetic and outgoing as him, it was a dangerous combination. Green erected the standard police stonewall.
“We’re pursuing a number of leads. But so far we haven’t been able to connect with his son.”
Tolner’s eyebrows arched. “He’s a suspect?”
He thought the man looked faintly disappointed. “Well, I haven’t seen the son in years. Not since the wife’s funeral.”
“And how were things between father and son then?”
“Tense.” Tolner hesitated. “I don’t think it’s easy growing up with a psychiatrist for a father. Especially one who specializes in young people. And Sam—may he rest in peace —Sam could be arrogant.”
“Know-it-all?”
Tolner rolled his eyes. “And how. But David was no pushover either. Wore blinkers his whole life through so he would see only what he wanted to. Nearly killed the family dog once, I remember, kicked it down the stairs in a fit of temper. The fights in that house must have been stupendous. Poor Evie was the glue who kept that family together.”
And when she was gone, it flew apart, Green thought. However, that was no reason for murder years later, and that line of speculation was better saved until Levesque’s team had located the son. He switched gears, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Do you know if there have been any threats or attacks around the neighbourhood against elderly people? Or Jews?”
Tolner’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Attacks against Jews? You think it was a hate crime?”
“No, we don’t,” Green said, moving quickly to squelch Tolner’s overactive imagination. “I’m casting a broad net, looking at all possibilities. You hear things. Anyone had a minor attack or threat?”
“What’s an attack? ‘Hitler should have finished the job, pig’? We get a few of those, mostly those of us who wear a yarmulke or other visible sign.”
“Anything worse? Intimidation? Physical threats?”
Tolner bent over his bike and spun the wheel, watching its alignment. “Nothing much. Every time Israel does something not so nice to the Palestinians, we feel it on the streets. Mostly a glare here, a slur there.” He raised his head thoughtfully to study Green. “Intimidation is a subtle thing, Mike. A group of youths come the other way down the street, black kids swaggering along, or Arabs talking loud and excitedly, and I feel afraid. They stare me down, and I want to take my kippeh off, cross the street and keep my eyes on the ground. I don’t. I force myself to walk towards them, and in my head I pretend they’re a group of chattering school girls. I smile at them, and I step out of their way. So far nothing has ever happened to me. Not even a muttered racial slur. But they own that little strip of street that we’re on, and boy, you feel it.”
“What if you didn’t step aside? What if you tried to stare them down?”
“I’m not fool enough to test the idea. You’re a cop, you know all about this top dog game. They don’t want to beat you up, they just want you under their heel. All the rest—the Swastikas on the graves, the eggs on the synagogue door—is designed to further put you down. So they can build themselves up.”
Green nodded. He was very familiar with the psyche of the bully and the street punk, who used the only tools at hand —their size, numbers and body language— to capture some of the power that belonged to others. It was primitive, caveman psychology, but on a dark street corner, all of us were hardwired to respond. Fight or flight.
Green could almost hear Sharon shaking her head and muttering “you men”. Since the caveman days, men had banded together, puffed up their team and strutted in front of the other side, testing their power and comparing their strength. Society was more complex now, and power was measured not just in brute strength but in money, possessions, jobs and trophy women, but that basic instinct still lay just below the surface. How did a man feel when his power faded? When he was alone, old and frail, no longer with the job and status he had enjoyed? How would he respond to a group of young men swaggering down the street as if they owned it all? Flight, like Tolner?
Not Rosenthal.
Eight
Look, Daddy! I tied my new shoes all by myself!” Green bolted awake just in time to intercept his son, who was making a flying leap into the middle of his parents’ bed. Grey daylight was barely peeking around the edges of the blinds, and Green shivered as he groped his way to peer out the window. Wednesday morning looked blustery and raw, an early hint of the winter to come. Charcoal storm clouds were billowing in from the west, scattering dry leaves along the street. Overhead a horde of Canada geese honked southward.
Sharon was still fast asleep, and with her stretch of evening shifts, he knew she needed all the sleep she could manage. In the background, he could hear the sound of the shower running. Miraculously, Hannah was up.
Tony talked in dramatic stage whispers as Green led him back into his own room and helped him select some of his brand new X-Games clothes for school. The choice proved so difficult that they had no time for breakfast, and Green ended up piling Tony into the car with only a bagel and juice box. His protest was loud enough to wake the neighbourhood until Green threw in a bribe of two Oreo cookies for snack. Sharon would not be impressed. It was Green’s turn to do the school car pool, and by the time he had delivered all three chattering five-year-olds to the school yard, his head felt as if it had been jackhammered.
As abruptly as the chaos had begun, it was quiet again. Heading in to work, Green slipped in a Sarah Slean CD and balanced his bagel on the steering wheel as he savoured his coffee with his free hand. Thank God for solitude, he thought, letting the gentle lyrics wash over him.
He was anxious to get to the station before Brian Sullivan did his morning parade. Whenever there was a major new homicide investigation, Green liked to attend the briefings. However, by the time he’d delivered the children to school and fought his way past all the downtown construction, the preliminaries were over and Sergeant Levesque was just getting up to summarize the Rosenthal case to date. She used the most modern computer software and entered the updates on a smart board as they came along.
“The dentist has confirmed our ID of the victim. And we have identified two of the four men on the pawn shop video. One’s a frequent flyer—our good buddy Nadif Hassan, currently out on bail in the Rideau Centre assault, and the second is a YO named Yusuf Abdi. Both of these men had preliminary interviews on Monday as part of our canvass of known gang members in the area. Nadif Hassan claimed he was home all Saturday night, and his mother corroborated that.”
Eyes rolled. Mothers and their little darlings. Levesque smiled and flicked her ponytail to show she wasn’t duped. “Since there are eight children in that household, I’m not sure she’d even notice. We will interview him again.”
“This morning?” Sullivan asked.
She shook her head. “I want to get some leverage on him first, so I asked Detective Jones to get warrants for a wiretap and a search of his residence. We’re looking for a bat or some other long, round weapon, bloodstained clothes, plus the items stolen from the victim—his shoes, watch, rings.” She nodded towards the unit’s warrant drafting wizard, who had just rushed into the room clutching some papers. “Any luck, Detective?”
Jones waved the papers, grinning. “I got Judge Olds. I knew he’d just bought a retirement condo for himself and his wife in that upscale new high-rise in the Byward Market.”
Appreciative laughter rippled through the room. While Levesque lined up the logistics and personnel for the search, Green leaned in close to Sullivan. “Who’s feeding the media, by the way?”
Levesque swung around from the smart board screen on which she’d been writing assignments. It was her first notice of him, and she didn’t miss a beat. “I am, Inspector Green. I wanted to shake the gangs up, see who panics.”
After yesterday’s headlines, the mayor and city council are the most likely to panic, he thought, but he said nothing. From Levesque’s point of view, it was the right thing to do, and it might even net them more resources for the fight against street gangs. She clicked, and a mug shot flashed up on the screen. The man had skin as smooth as polished ebony and large eyes fringed by long, almost
delicate lashes, but those eyes were cold as they stared at the camera. Marie Claire Levesque tapped the screen.
“Nadif Hassan is our number one guy right now. He lives and operates in the area, and he does not hesitate to use violence. So I also want a canvass of the whole neighbourhood. Find someone he bragged to, find some place he tried to fence the proceeds.”
Green could stand it no longer. “Hassan is a businessman. He commits crimes to settle a score or send a message. He doesn’t beat an old man twelve times with a baseball bat, adding one for good luck at the back of the neck, just to make sure he’s dead.”
She was ready even for that. “He’s also a hothead, and he’s under a lot of pressure right now. The old man fought back, maybe challenged him to the very end. And Hassan knows any more felonies while he’s on trial for the Rideau Centre knifing will make things much worse for him. He probably realized the old man could identify him, so what started as a mugging finished with this. Twelve hits with a baseball bat. And...” Levesque glanced at him with the merest hint of a smile, “there is also the anti-Zionist feelings. Hassan is a Muslim, Rosenthal was a Jew. A supporter of Israel. The destruction of the Star of David suggests that Hassan was angry at that.”
Green nodded. She hadn’t thrown out his wild speculation. Sullivan was right; she was good. Nadif Hassan was not going to know what happened to him once Marie Claire Levesque got him by the balls. Nonetheless, Green didn’t expect the house search to bear much fruit. At twenty-three, Nadif was a wily veteran of numerous police raids, which began with schoolyard assaults at age ten, and he would have learned to keep his premises clean.
Green had barely worked his way through his morning’s emails, however, when his phone rang.
Sullivan was chuckling. “Never underestimate the stupidity—or greed—of your average bad guy.”