She remembered the man she’d seen rummaging around here in the thicket. Perhaps he was looking for this! She felt a flutter of excitement. It might be jewellery or coins, perhaps something even more valuable. This is an old home; an ordinary artifact might be worth a lot of money. Whether she kept it or turned it over to Robert Pettigrew, she would decide later, once she’d seen what it was.
With the help of some oil and a screwdriver, she began very slowly to work the lid loose. It was stubborn and loosening it took an interminable time. Finally, with one last pop, the lid came off. Isabelle peered inside and her eagerness died abruptly.
Six metal bottle caps, a white feather, a box of condoms, two slips of paper, a brass key, and the final object—a small white sphere. She turned the sphere over in her fingers curiously until she was looking at it head on, and saw two tiny holes and the remnants of a beak. It was the skull of a tiny bird.
Isabelle snatched her fingers away as if they’d been burned. The bird skull tumbled into the dirt next to the can. Horror crawled over her skin, and she sat back on her heels, staring at the object, in the grip of an irrational fear. Had the man come back to the farm for this? For a dozen condoms, a bunch of useless junk and a bird skull?
She scooped up the contents, returned them to the tin and pressed the lid down tightly before heading into the house to find Sergeant Sullivan’s card. She wasn’t sure what the significance of the tin was, but she knew the police had better have a look at it.
Six
When Green arrived at the station the next morning, Brian Sullivan’s desk was deserted, but a young woman was parked outside his own office, clutching an envelope of material to her generous chest. She wore a hideous black and white checked pant suit and clunky black shoes and made no attempt to tame her frizzy red hair, but nevertheless, she managed to look cute. She looked about fourteen years old, although Green knew from her file that she was twice that.
Her baby blue eyes lit at the sight of him, and she stuck out an exuberant hand. “Inspector Green! Detective Sue Peters, remember?”
He took her hand in his, felt the smooth, firm pressure of her fingers. It lingered a little long, he thought, making a silent note to beware. He opened his door and nodded to her package. “You have something for me?”
“Yessir. The Sarge—Sullivan, I mean—told me to bring you this stuff. Thought you might like to see it.” She followed him inside, making no effort to detach the envelope from her breasts.
“And where is Sergeant Sullivan?”
“Got a call, went out to Ashford Landing.” Without an invitation, she kicked the guest chair out and plunked herself down in it.
Green surveyed the mountain of paperwork on his desk and the blinking message light on his phone. “What’s the material about?”
“Stuff from Ident, mostly pictures from the Ashford Landing scene. The Sarge said there wasn’t much new, but you’d want to look at it all anyway.” Still she clutched the material as if it were the Crown jewels.
He nodded to his desk brusquely. “Thank you. Just leave it there, I’ll look at it in a minute. Did the sergeant assign you anything else to do?”
Her lips curved up in a grin. “I’m working with Gibbsie, trying to find those three brothers. Quite the nice little riddle, eh, sir? Which one’s the guy who took the swan dive off the tower?”
Green glanced through his open door into the squad room to see Gibbs hunched over his computer, tapping furiously. “That’s the basis of a lot of detective work, Peters. The sooner we know who the man is, the sooner we can begin tracing his movements and figuring out how he died. You’d better go help, Detective.”
It took her a couple of seconds to get the hint, but finally she parted with her prize, dropped it on his desk and headed over to Gibbs. Green uttered a short, silent apology to the faithful, hard-working detective, waited until Peters was well out of sight, then snatched up the envelope.
Five minutes later, he tossed the reports aside with frustration. Sullivan was right; not much there. Yet even the lack of evidence was telling. Not the slightest trace of blood had been detected on the top of the tower, which made it unlikely that any of the victim’s abrasions had been sustained in a struggle up there. The contour and markings on the fatal head wound matched those of the rock beneath his head, confirming MacPhail’s theory that the fall itself was the cause of death. The small piece of fabric that had snagged on the parapet had been sent to the RCMP lab for formal analysis, along with the jacket from which it had presumably ripped, but Cunningham had found the torn section at the back of the hem where it seemed to fit.
Green fed the CD of crime scene photos into his computer and watched as his screen filled with meticulously ordered shots—overviews, middle views and close-ups of every single item of evidence found at the scene. Green studied the views of the body, trying to picture it in the physical surroundings of the church. The man lay on his stomach with his legs splayed and his head facing the tower. His head was twisted to one side, almost touching the stone base. Ident had done a very thorough physical search of the vicinity and had photographed a dozen cigarette butts, a decaying tennis ball, a few old candy wrappers and an ice cream cup. Everything looked at least a month old.
The next series of photos was a scrupulous record of the church tower, from each latent fingerprint on the ladder to the colourful collection of bird droppings on the parapet. The fabric from the jacket had been found on the top of the wall directly above the body. Green studied the photo carefully. The fabric had snagged on the inner corner of the wall where it had crumbled, leading Cunningham to speculate that in the act of hoisting himself up over the wall, the victim had pressed against the wall, dislodging some old mortar and tearing his jacket. Cunningham was still trying to match all the latents lifted from the ladder, but he was leaning towards suicide.
Green leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, trying to visualize the victim’s last movements, but the photos weren’t enough. The suicide theory didn’t feel right yet. Once Ident had finished there, he needed to go to the scene, to walk through the steps the man had taken, in order to see the things he’d seen and imagine the thoughts he had. Maybe then Green would understand whether the man had jumped of his own accord.
Meanwhile, it was a waiting game while the detectives gathered facts, and reluctantly Green turned his attention to his mountain of paperwork. He was at it for less than an hour and had made his way through only a fraction when Bob Gibbs knocked diffidently on his door.
“Sorry, sir. Ah... Angela Hogencamp, the woman from the St. Lawrence group home, is on the line. Lawrence Pettigrew has disappeared. Are we going to send someone down to interview them?”
“Put her through.” Green shoved his paperwork aside with relief and snatched up his phone the moment it rang. The woman at the other end sounded as if she smoked two packs a day and had seen every depravity known to man. After preliminary introductions, Green asked her what she meant by “disappeared”.
“Six weeks ago. He didn’t show up for his meds and routine blood work.”
“Six weeks ago! Why was no one alerted?”
There was a chilly pause. “Who should we have alerted, sir?”
“The police.”
“Lawrence wasn’t in custody. He’s a voluntary patient living on his own, and he’s free to stop treatment any time he chooses. What’s the Ottawa police’s involvement, sir?”
Green rethought his approach, for he wanted cooperation from this woman, and right now she was in classic “coveryour-ass” mode. “I apologize, Mrs. Hogencamp. I didn’t mean to imply you were derelict in your duties. We’ve had an unusual sighting of a man who bears some resemblance to him. I know Lawrence was in hospital for close to twenty years, and I’m concerned he might not have the street smarts to survive on his own.”
“As are we, I assure you,” she replied in a tone only slightly thawed. “We have been searching all over for him, and the Brockville police have in fact been notified. B
ut he’s not top priority for them, being but one of many chronic psychiatric cases they’ve had to contend with over the years. He’s not a danger to anyone but himself.”
Green’s ears perked up. “Are you saying he’s suicidal?”
“I didn’t mean to imply that. Merely that, as you said, he’s rather childlike. He’s been in hospital since 1984. After twenty years of illness and institutional life, as well as years of electroshocks and strong anti-psychotic medication, I’m afraid there aren’t too many brain cells left.”
She tossed the observation off with a casual resignation that matched her smoke-weary voice. From Sharon, Green knew that psychiatric staff, like police officers, saw the grim underbelly of life every day, and that the woman’s sensitivity had probably been a casualty of her years spent battling the pain and wasted lives of mental illness. “Would he be delusional? Hallucinating?”
“Not right away. He still would have had a supply of pills for a while, but then he would have gradually become less coherent.”
“Did you notify his family?”
The woman snorted, triggering a prolonged coughing fit, which left her hoarse and gasping. “We tried the number on file, but it had been disconnected. Not that it would have mattered much. His family hasn’t visited him in years.”
“Did anyone else visit him?”
“Former patients, occasionally. But we’ve checked, and none of them has seen him.”
“Might he have tried to go home?
She paused. “This was his home.”
“Would he know how to get to the farm where he grew up? Did he ever talk about it?”
“Not once.” She hesitated, and her voice softened. “I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but when the ward was closing, the team looked at moving him back home, or at least to a group home nearer home. He regressed badly at the suggestion, and his father wanted nothing to do with it. Refused to even come meet our team. Lawrence knew his family had rejected him. I can’t imagine he’d want to go back there ever again.”
Green had encountered many mentally ill people over the years, and he knew how crucial family support was to their recovery. He was beginning to feel very sorry for this poor, misunderstood, stigmatized young man. Shunned first by the village, and then by his own family.
“Any idea why they rejected him?”
“Why do families reject the mentally ill? Afraid of them, ashamed of them? Tired of dealing with them, want to be able to take that trip to Florida? You’d be surprised what a dumping ground the hospital is, Inspector.”
Cynicism aside, she had a point. He asked a few more questions about Lawrence’s personal effects and finances, both of which were virtually non-existent, then told her he’d be asking the Brockville police to show her a photo and some clothing to see whether they might belong to Lawrence. She had thawed considerably by then, and she heaved a deep, regretful sigh. “If it is him who died, I wouldn’t be surprised. Not that he wanted to die...but he didn’t really have anything compelling to live for. Wasn’t actually living much at all.”
Once he’d hung up, Green sat at his desk a moment, recalling the chronic schizophrenics he’d met in his career. Mostly street people, adrift from the anchor of meds and family support. It’s true that by normal standards they hadn’t much compelling to live for, but even the street people clung to the lives they had, deriving pleasure and pride from simple moments and never setting their sights or their hopes too high. If Lawrence had killed himself, the questions remained. Why there? Why now?
He opened the door to his office and was pleased to spot Sullivan just emerging from the elevator. He beckoned him inside. Sullivan dropped into the guest chair, stretched his long legs out, unsealed a plastic evidence bag and plunked an object on a piece of white paper on the edge of Green’s desk. Bits of dirt fell from what looked like a blackened tin can.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Green said, reaching into his desk to slip on nitryl gloves. “What’s that?”
“Someone’s secret treasure chest. Isabelle Boisvert found it in her yard, right around where our dead guy was digging. Looks like he buried it there.”
The can rattled as Green picked it up. “Have you looked inside?”
Sullivan nodded. “Someone had a very weird idea of treasure.”
Green pried the lid off and spread the objects carefully on the sheet of paper. For a moment, they both contemplated the collection in silence. The bottle caps could be explained away, as could the feather, the key and the condoms. Children collected the oddest trinkets. But the bird skull gave him pause. A child might have a passing fascination with a dead animal, might even keep a skeleton for a while, but to store it with their treasures suggested a fascination with the macabre that was a little over the top. And where was the rest of the body? The skull was perfectly intact, almost as if the bird had been decapitated with surgical precision.
What sane, normal child decapitates a bird and stores the head in their treasure box?
Only a crazy one. Green unfolded the slips of paper and popped each inside its own evidence bag. One was a smudged fragment of paper torn from a notebook “S Bus 4:30, meet me 3:00 our place”. The other was a page from a love letter written to a girl named Sophia, asking for her forgiveness and begging for another chance. The two were in different hands—the former a tight, sophisticated script and the latter a ragged scrawl.
Sullivan had been silent during Green’s perusal of the contents, and as he returned the objects to the can, he was aware of Sullivan’s questioning gaze. “This is Lawrence Pettigrew’s stuff,” Green said by way of answer. “Apparently he used to confiscate his brothers’ condoms and try to interfere with their sex lives. I don’t know what the rest of this stuff means, but it’s beginning to look as if Lawrence might be our John Doe. He’s disappeared from Brockville.”
“What about Derek’s crucifix?”
Green shrugged. “It’s possible Lawrence stole it, or expropriated it.” He gave Sullivan an update of what the group home supervisor had said. “We’ll fax John Doe’s photo down to Brockville PD and ask them to run it by the group home staff. If the ID is positive, we’ll need to send someone down.”
Sullivan nodded. “I’ll send Gibbs and Sue Peters. Give her a chance to see how we put together corroborating evidence to make an ID.”
“Her and Gibbs in the car together for two hours?” Green winced. “Cruel and unusual punishment for our Gibbsie. I think you should go with her.”
Sullivan frowned at him. “I’ve got a bunch of other cases on my plate.”
“But I think Sue Peters can learn a lot from you. And she needs all the help she can get.” And with her on the case, CID needs all the help it can get as well, he added to himself.
“She’s got to learn some time, and this is a case she can’t really screw up,” Sullivan said.
“Still, it is your case.”
Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “Oh, is it now?”
“Yeah, and you can use your Irish charm on this Mrs. Hogencamp. She’s a little skittish, and we need her nice and chatty. Peters would shut her up tighter than a clam.”
Sullivan shrugged and hauled his large feet off Green’s desk. “First, I’ll fax the photo down to Brockville and make sure our dead guy is Lawrence. Then I’ll go tell my staff sergeant that the inspector might be ordering me into the boonies for the day just to ID a suicide. Make him feel important.” He restored the tin can to the evidence bag and carefully resealed it. “If I take Peters instead of Gibbs, he’ll think he’s done something wrong, you know.”
“I’ve got other plans for Gibbs.”
* * *
Green had hoped to get to Gibbs before the office grapevine did, but by the time he had a free moment, it was too late. He found the young detective hard at work at his computer, but his avoidance of Green’s eyes betrayed his hurt. Green was reminded once more of what a good cop Sullivan was; he knew his men, and despite his bear-like physique and his country boy manner, sensitiv
ity was his greatest strength. Green did not have Sullivan’s tact, nor his ease with emotion. He simply pulled a chair up to Gibbs’s desk and leaned over.
“So? Any luck?”
Gibbs stared at his screen without answering for a moment, then seemed to draw himself together. He straightened his long, gangly form and picked up his notes.
“What do you want first, sir? The success or the failure?”
“The failure. Then we’ve nowhere to go but up.”
Gibbs didn’t smile. “Derek Pettigrew’s whereabouts are a complete mystery. Not only can I find no one who’s seen him in the past few days, but no one’s seen him, period. It’s like this guy dropped out of sight twenty years ago. There’s no record of anyone with that name and birth date being registered at Berkeley or any other California university.”
“He could have gone to some other state or moved anywhere in North America.”
Gibbs cast him a brief, triumphant glance. “But no one with that name and birth date has ever filed a tax return or applied for a passport in either the U.S. or Canada.”
Green tried to make sense of this latest surprise. Plenty of people dropped out for lots of reasons, most of them nefarious. Criminals eluding the authorities, people escaping an unpleasant past or unsavoury associates, occasionally children or spouses hiding from their families. Certainly the Pettigrew family had been far from exemplary, and Derek had broadcast that he was never coming home again, but nothing the investigation had uncovered so far suggested he’d go into hiding to avoid them.
“Do we have any record of this guy in our system? Some young offender stuff from long ago—suspicious contacts, anything that suggests he may have gotten in over his head with some bad guys? Can you check with the OPP and the RCMP?”
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