Do or Die

by Barbara Fradkin

  Green’s antennae began to quiver. “Do you still have the note?”

  Haddad reached into his pocket and extracted a folded sheet of paper. He held it a moment in trembling hands before reluctantly handing it over.

  My Darling,

  I can’t stay away from you! I grow hard just writing this note. I want you, I need you, and I’m sick of sneaking around and grabbing stolen hours with you. To hell with your uncle. To hell with my mother and the stuffed shirts we work with. We’re going to do it! I’ll tell my mother I’m taking a trip, we’ll get that place and we can stay in bed for the rest of our lives! I can’t believe I’ll be able to fuck you whenever I want you. Which is always! Only one more week! Hold on, baby. I am, hard as it is (just the way you like it). I love you madly!

  Jonathan

  * * *

  Sullivan reread the note, then held it up to study it from a distance. They were sitting in Green’s office, having thanked Pierre Haddad for his help and promising to get back to him. The plastic evidence bag crackled in Sullivan’s hands. Inside was an eight-by-eleven sheet of standard white computer paper.

  “Pretty impersonal way to send a love note,” Green muttered. “Looks more like an office memo.”

  “People who do everything by computer operate like that. I get lots of memos just printed by computer. Nobody bothers with writing anymore. At least the guy signed it.”

  “Right…” Green rested his head in his hand. “But you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty damn convenient. Hardly anything we can match it to, to check if Blair really wrote it…and this business of it ‘accidentally’ dropping on Pierre’s front walk. Give me a break.”

  “You’re saying it’s a plant?”

  Green swivelled to face Sullivan. “Let me ask you this. What would be your reaction if you found a note like this from Lizzie’s boyfriend?”

  Sullivan grinned. “Lizzie’s only sixteen. I’d kill the guy.”

  “But if—”

  “What every father’s would be, Mike. Furious. Just like the Haddads. I’d probably try to send her to my sister in Alberta.”

  “So this note would be almost sure to provoke a reaction?”

  “Absolutely. He pushes all the buttons—crude sex, defiance of parents…just wait till you have a daughter, Mike. You’ll want to protect her from the likes of us till she’s thirty-five!”

  I have a daughter, Green thought with a sudden pang. A daughter and a son, but perhaps I’ll never get to know either. He forced the idea out of his mind with an effort. “This killer is clever, Brian. Look at the frame!”

  “If it is a frame,” Sullivan reminded him. “The only thing we have to substantiate that theory is one black hair. And that could belong to Eddie Haddad’s girlfriend, for all we know.”

  “But it doesn’t. It belongs to the killer.”

  “As they say, tell that to the judge.”

  Green swivelled his chair back to his desk and stood up. “Let’s get this down to Paquette and see what forensics can find. Then we’ll take it over to the documents guy at the RCMP lab and see if it’s really Blair’s signature. Maybe then we’ll have more than one black hair.”

  Green had hoped to get the note analyzed quickly, but just as he and Sullivan were crossing the main lobby towards the Ident Unit, Deputy Chief Lynch emerged from the elevator. Clutched in his fist was a newspaper. Oh fuck, Green thought to himself.

  “Green! Get over here!”

  Green sent Sullivan on ahead to Paquette’s lab and steeled himself to face Lynch, who propelled him into an empty waiting room and slammed the door behind them.

  “I don’t need this shit!” Lynch flung the tabloid down on a chair. “I put myself on the line for you. I promised the bigshots you could deliver, and what do you give me? This!” He stabbed the front page with his finger.

  “It’s not worth wasting our energy on, sir,” Green replied, although he knew it sounded lame.

  “Wasting our energy?” Lynch echoed. “That’s all you can say? The press calls us all a bunch of whores and incompetents, with you topping the list—”

  “The press tries to sell papers. They do whatever it takes, you know that, sir. If they don’t have facts, they make them up. I can’t control what they print.”

  “You could if you’d answer their calls!” Lynch shot back. “Or answered Media Relations’ calls. Or mine! If you told anybody what the fuck you were doing, then maybe it wouldn’t look like nothing.”

  “What do you want me to do? Answer calls or solve the case?”

  The Deputy Chief shoved a finger in his face. “Listen, sonny, this is not Adam Jules you’re talking to. I don’t give a fuck about your homicide record. It doesn’t do me bugger all good if you’re sitting on your ass letting this Arab bastard run around loose. Pick him up before I assign the case to someone else.”

  Green could feel the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Gritting his teeth he counted slowly to five. “He’s not guilty, sir,” he said when he dared.

  “Not guilty! What are you, God? The way I hear it, the case is open and shut.”

  “The man was framed.”

  Lynch turned purple. “You working for the defence now, Green? Do I have to make myself clearer? Arrest the guy.”

  “Sir, we’d look stupid if—”

  “We’d look stupid?” Lynch seized the paper and threw it in Green’s face. “What do you call that! You’ve got till the end of the day to lay a charge in this case, or you’re off it!” He spun around and slammed out of the room.

  In the silence that suddenly fell, Green could hear his own heart thumping. He retrieved the loathsome newspaper from the floor. He had never seen the Deputy Chief so angry. He doesn’t give a damn about the truth, thought Green bitterly. He just wants to look good, and heaven help the person who messes that up. I bet if I solved the case tomorrow, he’d be the first here for the pictures. My best buddy.

  Fuck him, he thought, shoving the newspaper in the trash. What Lynch thinks isn’t important. What’s important are the facts.

  With that in mind, he went out to rejoin Sullivan. He ran into him just emerging from Ident’s corner of the building, teasing Paquette over his shoulder as he left.

  “That was fast,” Green said.

  “Not much to analyze.” Sullivan waved the note. “There were only three legible prints on it. Haddad’s right thumb and index finger and his son Paul’s right thumb. The rest are just smudges, but nothing at all like Blair’s.”

  “Hah!” Green cried, the adrenaline still pumping from his clash with Lynch. “Don’t try to tell me Jonathan Blair wore gloves when he wrote his love notes.”

  “No, I won’t try to tell you that. It’s fishy, that’s for sure.”

  Green strode down the hall. “He’s smart, but he’s not as smart as all that. He couldn’t find a way to put Blair’s prints on the note so he had to leave it blank. Stupid mistake. Now let’s see how good he is at forging.”

  They battled the last of the Saturday shopping traffic as they made their way over to the RCMP Headquarters. Drivers baking in the heat honked and sat on one another’s bumpers. Inching east along the Queensway, Sullivan glanced over at Green, who was staring out the side window.

  “So what did Lynch want? More of the same?”

  “He wanted to show me today’s headline.”

  Sullivan grimaced. “Yeah, I saw it. But people don’t really believe everything they read.”

  Green nodded mechanically. The adrenaline rush had begun to subside, leaving a shakiness and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. His earlier optimism had deserted him. What if the newspaper was right, and he never solved the case? What if Sharon had finally given up? What if he had finally destroyed, through his own self-absorption, the last of the affection that had kept her with him?

  Was there any way to get it back? He felt the ache in his stomach as he remembered the years before he had found her. Not as years of glorious sexual adventure, but as years of hope and p
ain and disappointment, looking for the one Great Love of his Life. A family, children, a place to come home to—how much he had wanted those things then! As an only child, with his mother dead now and his father a frail old man, he dreamed of being surrounded by family that would chase out the loneliness he had felt all his life. After a string of romantic failures, he had thought Sharon was the one. But maybe it was his destiny to be a loner, to have nothing but his work, his colleagues and moments of physical release when he needed them. Would he never move on? Would he never grow up? Was he destined to fail every woman who felt something for him? The ache tightened his chest and stung his eyes.

  God, get a grip, Green! he scolded himself. You’re wallowing in self-pity because you haven’t had a decent meal or a decent night’s sleep in days. You feel guilty about Carrie, and rightly so. And your marriage has hit a rough patch, that’s all! Is anybody’s marriage perfect? Sharon’s working too hard, I’m working too hard, the baby’s exhausting and the damn apartment’s too small! We can fix all that.

  He took a deep, cleansing breath and raised his head just as they turned into the RCMP parking lot. “The best thing we can do, for all our sakes, is solve this damn case.”

  The documents expert at the RCMP lab took only ten minutes to compare the ‘Jonathan’ on the note to one on a memo Blair had written to Halton. During that ten minutes, he didn’t say a single word. The silence was broken only by the rustle of paper and the shuffling of his footsteps. When he finally spoke, it was like a gunshot in a deserted room.

  “It’s a tracing. Pen pressure’s too even and the hand was moving much too slowly. There’s a minute tremor in the lines which you only get if you’re moving slowly. A good likeness in terms of letter formation. A quick glance, even someone familiar with his signature—they wouldn’t notice anything wrong.”

  * * *

  “I knew it!” Green pounded the dash of Sullivan’s old Chevrolet. “I knew it was a set-up. Eddie Haddad a cold-blooded killer? Give me a break.”

  As Sullivan steered the car onto the Queensway entrance ramp for the short hop from the RCMP Headquarters back to the Elgin Street police station, the sun was sinking deep into the murky western sky. Heat still hung over the city like a wet sponge. Sullivan lowered the visor with a sigh. “What next? Do we pick up Miller or go home?”

  Green squinted ahead into the hazy red glow. “I never did like Miller as a suspect.”

  Sullivan groaned. “Who else, Mike? Difalco? Rosalind Simmons, maybe? Or how about the cleaning lady?”

  “How about Halton?”

  “Halton.” Sullivan shook his head in disgust. “Ask yourself the first question in a murder investigation, who stands to gain by Blair’s death? Miller. He fits all the criteria. Brains, inside knowledge, access to Blair’s computer, motive in spades and no alibi for the night of Blair’s death. He said he was alone in his office at his computer all evening. No one can substantiate that.”

  “That’s the point. Wouldn’t someone as smart as Miller have set himself up a better alibi if he were planning to kill someone?”

  “Miller’s a genius, but in street smarts he’s a real dud. He’s obsessed with his research, and you know as well as me that obsessions can blind a guy. And with his history of mental problems—”

  “I know it fits, but it just doesn’t sit right,” Green said. “Blair was upset by his discovery about the data tampering. He was thinking of leaving Halton’s program. Why?”

  They were nearing the Nicholas off-ramp, which led to Green’s apartment. “Mike, where are we going?”

  Green wasn’t sure he’d be able to get food past the sick knot in his stomach, but the half-eaten bagel he’d managed at noon was long gone, and dizziness was setting in. If he wanted to keep going, he had to eat. “Nate’s Deli. I need to think.”

  Sullivan groaned as he steered the car off the Queensway onto Nicholas Street. “This is the third meal I’ve eaten out in a row. Mary will kill me.”

  Green waved a distracted hand. “No, she’ll kill me. She always does. Miller’s guilt would never have made Blair feel like quitting Halton.”

  “But Halton has nothing to gain by knocking off Blair. Miller was the one screwing up his program.”

  “Yes, but Blair was the one threatening to blow the whistle.”

  “Mike, that doesn’t make any sense. You’re right, you need food—your brain cells are dying. Why ask Blair to look into it if he didn’t want the truth known?”

  Green scrambled to keep ahead of Sullivan’s logic. This was how they worked best together—Green making his wild intuitive leaps and down-to-earth Sullivan trailing along with the safety net. “Because Halton was passionate about his research, the same trait that makes him such a good suspect. He had to know the truth so that his future research would not be based on a lie. But then he asked Blair to keep it quiet, and Blair refused. Which would have really screwed up Halton’s bid to work with Yale and finally play with the big boys. He had to knock the kid off. It fits, Brian. It’s convoluted, but it fits.”

  Waiting behind a string of cars turning left onto King Edward Street, Sullivan gave him a long exasperated look. “I think Miller fits better. Come on, Mike, face it. You just like to see the big guys fall.”

  Green grinned. “What do you want from a scruffy little kid from Lowertown? I admit Miller’s past strikes a chord. We’re both working class, inner city Jewish kids. But I don’t give you a hard time every time you go sappy over some Irish Valley boy—”

  Sullivan laughed. “Oh, not much.”

  “How about Difalco? He fits the profile perfectly. Now there’s a guy we can both dislike. Rich, arrogant, spoiled…”

  “Yeah, but he’s got an alibi. Plus no motive.”

  Green snorted. “Lateral thinking, Sullivan. That’s exactly what makes Difalco and Halton suspicious. This killing is brilliant and premeditated. Whoever did it would have set himself an airtight alibi.”

  Sullivan manoeuvred the car off Rideau Street into the parking lot of Nate’s Delicatessen. For a moment he was silent as he concentrated his energies on squeezing the oversized Chevrolet into the last tiny space on the congested lot. Then he turned to Green.

  “But Halton’s alibi does give us a small problem. Half a dozen sailing cronies place him in Toronto five hundred kilometres away. I’d say that was pretty airtight.”

  Green shook his head. “Not if you look at the timing. Yesterday I double-checked his story with his sailing buddy from York University. Halton was out sailing on Tuesday, that much is true. But according to Dr. Trent, he insisted on an early dinner, passed up his usual double martinis, and left shortly after seven. A fast driver in a good car could make it in under four hours. Halton has a BMW. It’s cutting it close, but it’s possible.”

  Sullivan laughed. “With wings.”

  They swung open the door to the deli and felt the blast of air conditioning. Both heaved a sigh of relief. Nodding to the waitress who approached, they headed towards the back.

  “Brian, don’t forget this killer is smart! Do you think he’d go to all the trouble of setting up this frame and not give himself a decent alibi? Miller’s a sitting duck! He left the whole evening wide open, with no one to substantiate his story!”

  Sullivan eased himself into the booth and picked up the menu. “Come on, a guy like Halton’s much more likely to get someone else to do his dirty work.”

  Green froze half-seated, his thoughts racing as he suddenly remembered Difalco and the stolen files. “Two people! Each supplying only half the picture. One who had the motive, the other the means and opportunity. And who else but the golden boy? Brilliant, Brian! That’s it!”

  “Mike!” Sullivan waved the menu wildly. “Food!”

  But Green was already across the room.

  Thirteen

  Green fled the delicatessen in a burst of inspiration, only to stop dead in the parking lot when he realized he had no evidence. He sent Sullivan to get his car while he pondered a plan o
f attack. Tackled together, Halton and Difalco were unassailable; Halton had the perfect alibi and Difalco no motive. Green had to split them apart and undermine their mutual trust. If either could be made to see that their interests differed or if Green could find a crack in that trust, he might have a chance.

  He could try a frontal attack on Joe Difalco, pointing out that Blair too had once been Halton’s trusted soldier. He could try to appeal to Difalco’s macho need not to appear as a patsy, but he doubted Difalco would crack. For one thing, Difalco was wily enough to recognize hot air when it blew his way, and for another he knew that as the actual killer, he stood to lose much more than Halton, no matter what deal he cut.

  Similarly, any confrontation with Halton would be laughed right out of the ring. Halton would know he didn’t have a shred of evidence to back up his claim. A shred of evidence. That’s what he needed. Some sort of leverage to hold over them, if not to force a confession, which Green knew was unlikely, at least to panic one into betraying the other.

  The evidence was not in the research files, that much Green knew. Dr. Baker had analyzed it all, and everyone had come up blameless except David Miller. But somewhere, someone had to know something. No murderer was so lucky as to leave no tiny miscalculations behind.

  Blocking out Sullivan’s muttered curses as they drove back towards the station, Green pondered again the sequence of events and jotted notes in his notebook:

  1. Sunday— fake note typed on Blair’s computer.

  2. Saturday night—note planted on Pierre Haddad’s front walk.

  3. Monday evening—Blair completes formal statistical analysis proving Miller wrong.

  4. Monday evening (before or after above?)—Halton drives to Toronto.

  5. Tuesday morning—Blair asks for urgent meeting with Halton.

  6. Tuesday night—Blair murdered.

  Whoever killed Blair had to have known on Saturday that Blair was going to complete his analysis on Monday. Halton had chosen to go to Toronto on the very day Blair needed him the most! Definitely odd, thought Green, feeling that familiar rush when the scent is strong. But how would the killer have known? By breaking into Blair’s files himself to keep an eye on his progress? By running his own analysis on the side? Only Halton would be in a position to do that easily, for he had all the office keys and all the computer passwords.