The woman heaved a deep, defeated groan. “So you’ve identified her.”
He nodded. “We want to talk to her about an incident she may have witnessed—”
“Dr. Rosenthal’s murder.”
“Did you know him?”
She shook her head. “We saw the news clip.”
“He wasn’t one of the psychiatrists who treated your daughter over the years?”
“You make that sound like she’s a revolving door,” she snapped, then dropped her gaze to wipe a rain drop off her jacket. “Which she was. A revolving door with more advice and prescriptions than we knew what to do with.”
“Did he treat her?”
Vague apprehension flitted across her face, as if some ill-defined fear were niggling. “Not unless she saw him during one of her more outlandish stints when she wouldn’t talk to us for months on end.”
“Do you know what she was doing on Rideau Street on the night he was killed?”
She swallowed and ran her tongue around her chapped lips, as if yearning for a drink. “My daughter is a very ill woman. She has battled schizophrenia for eight years, and sometimes it makes her turn on those who care about her the most. My husband used to comb the streets for her, staying out all night. He visited the shelters and volunteered at the Shepherds of Good Hope, thinking maybe someday he’d look up from his soup pot, and there she’d be. Every time we heard of a car accident or rape or unidentified overdose, we’d be terrified.”
Green waited while the woman brushed every rain drop from her coat and scrubbed at an invisible stain. “I suppose she was...soliciting again. It paid the bills. We stopped giving her money, because she’d give it all away to every bum and addict she came across. Or she’d buy something ridiculous like a mink coat that would be stolen the next day. One of her psychiatrists explained that soliciting gives Caitlin some independence. Some power, for God’s sake. We tried everything to stop it. Community treatment orders that she ignored, fancy private hospitals in the U.S. We even had her committed to an institution for awhile, so at least she’d be cared for, but in the final analysis, we decided we had only two options. Bar her from the house and live in constant fear of a phone call from you folks or the morgue, or let her come and go on her own terms.”
“So does she live at home?”
“We still keep her room ready, but she’s more an occasional visitor. My husband still tries. He still tries to reason with her. I...” The woman pressed her eyes shut and waved a dismissive hand. “Some days I’m beyond caring any more. But it’s hard for a father to accept his little princess selling her body on the street.”
Green felt a wave of sorrow for them both. He remembered his own desperation when Hannah had been out of control, staying out all night, sleeping with God knows what pimply-faced punk, and swallowing dangerous drugs by the handful. Through perseverance, patience, and a hope he often doubted, she’d come around. However, she did not have a mind-altering illness.
“Was she at home when we called at the house just now?” Levesque asked, and Green saw the implication he’d overlooked, that perhaps the mother had fled to draw the police away from her daughter. But Mrs. O’Malley shook her head. Offered no alternative.
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“She’s not in trouble,” Green said. “If fact, if she saw something, she may be in danger.”
The woman stiffened. “Why?”
Green didn’t answer but instead took a guess. “She has been in touch, hasn’t she? Is she scared?”
He could see the woman teetering on the brink. She looked exhausted from years of battling the complexities of her daughter’s psyche.
“We only want to help her,” Levesque interjected, just as the woman began moving her lips. Mrs. O’Malley shot her a disbelieving look and pressed her lips closed. Inwardly, Green cursed.
“I don’t know where she is,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “But she would be scared. She would have seen her picture splashed all over the news, and she’d know that every police officer on every corner would be looking for her.” A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. “A paranoid’s nightmare.”
“Where would she go if she was on the run?” Green asked.
“I don’t know that she’s on the run. I just know how her mind works. She’ll think nowhere is safe. She has a thing about satellite surveillance, Google Earth, wireless signals. She thinks they’re all part of the Devil’s network, and we’re fools not to be suspicious. Sometimes she even convinces me. Besides...” She paused, doubt flickering in her bloodshot blue eyes.
“Besides what?”
“Did you guys phone this morning, looking for her?”
Green’s senses grew alert. “It wasn’t us. Who phoned?”
“I don’t know. Some man with a big, booming voice who said he was an old friend of Caitlin’s.” She grunted. “That put me on guard immediately. Caitlin doesn’t have any old friends whom she hasn’t driven away with her craziness.”
“Was there a caller ID?”
“It said ‘private caller’. Normally I don’t answer, but Patrick wanted to keep the line open in case—” She broke off, but Green understood. Against all rationality, you hope they’ll call.
“What time was this?”
“Eleven thirty. Just before I usually walk the dog.”
Green and Levesque exchanged glances. Eleven thirty was after the internal police bulletin had been issued but before the photo had been circulated to the media. Someone had known her name and address even before seeing the photo. Green asked Mrs. O’Malley to repeat the conversation as precisely as she could.
“Not much of a conversation. He asked if she still lived there, and when I asked who he was, he said he was an old friend who really wanted to get in touch with her, and did I know where he could reach her. I said she hadn’t been in touch for some time, but he didn’t sound as if he believed me. He said that doesn’t sound like Caitlin, which is when I knew he was lying, because it’s exactly like Caitlin. He had a loud voice and a laugh that sounded forced. I admit I was unnerved. I waited quite awhile before I took the dog out. When I came back, as I was walking up the street, I saw a car parked in front of the house. Was that one of yours?”
“What kind of car?” Green asked, his mind exploring possibilities.
“A regular car. Dark green. I’m not good with makes, but I don’t think it was out of the ordinary.”
“Did you see anyone in it?”
She nodded. “I gather that wasn’t you people? I could make out someone in the driver’s seat, but from where I was, that was all. The windows were tinted.”
“What happened next?”
“I stayed where I was. Pretended Zoë was doing her business. He stayed a couple of minutes and then he drove off really fast.”
“He?”
“It certainly looked like a man. I had a quick glimpse of him climbing into the car when I first rounded the corner. I think he may have rung the doorbell. But it was alarming how he sat there afterwards, as if he were spying.” She pressed a shaky hand to her lips. “I’ve always feared that some day one of the unsavoury characters my daughter consorts with...”
Green felt a flood of understanding. No wonder the woman had fled when he and Levesque came calling. “Did you report this to the police?”
“No, Patrick didn’t think it was worthwhile. Anyway, right after that we saw Caitlin’s photo on TV, and we figured that perhaps it was the police. But if it wasn’t...”
“Your husband was home at the time of this visit?”
“Yes, but he was in the backyard planting tulip bulbs, and he didn’t hear the bell.”
Green thought of the silver sports car in the drive. “Is he home now? Perhaps he saw something useful.”
She shook her head. “He went out right after we saw the story on TV. Probably out looking for her.” She paused, vague apprehension crossing her face again. “I think the strange visit worried him.”
Him and me both, Green thought. “Can you tell us anything at all about the man? Such as his clothes or his voice? Did he sound old or young on the phone? Did he use sophisticated language or...”
“He sounded plain. Rather like a used car salesman. Although...” She cocked her head. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but he seemed to have a very slight accent. I couldn’t tell you what kind.”
Twenty-One
The setting sun was peeking out from under the cloud cover by the time Levesque and Green had finished with Mrs. O’Malley and headed back downtown to the station. The whole sky was an eerie pink. Green spent the drive on his cellphone, trying to track down the dark green car. Neither the families of Omar Adams or Nadif Hassan owned such a car, but David Rosenthal was still a mystery. He and his white van were registered at the hotel he had given to the crash investigators, but neither had been seen all day.
Green had a bad feeling about the stranger who had come looking for Caitlin. Had the police’s own efforts to identify her on the street tipped off the killer that she might be a threat? Had the police inadvertently placed her in harm’s way? Once they arrived back at the station, he sent Levesque home to her dinner engagement while he headed straight down to speak to the duty sergeant for the Central District.
“We need to step up our efforts to find this young woman. We now have a name—Caitlin O’Malley—and a possible street name, Foxy.” He handed his colleague a new photo that Mrs. O’Malley had given him of Caitlin smiling in her graduation photo. Although not classically pretty, the young woman looked proud and full of hope. The sergeant studied the photo, his expression softening. Within minutes, he had it scanned and sent out to the in-car computers.
“You figure she’s downtown somewhere?” he asked.
“She’s probably on the run, but her mother swears they haven’t seen her or given her money, so I figure she’ll be trying to make some. The fastest means she knows is soliciting, so that’s where we should concentrate our efforts. The Byward, Vanier, maybe even as far west as Gladstone and Hintonburg.” Green stopped to consider other avenues open to them. “We should assume she knows we’re looking for her, but she doesn’t know that someone else is looking for her too. I don’t know if she’s streetwise enough to figure that out. I also don’t know how rational she is. She may be right out of her tree.”
“Dangerous?”
“Well, she is a paranoid schizophrenic, so depending on how she’s interpreting things... The mother says she’s never been violent, but maybe she’s never been this frightened before. It appears that she and Dr. Rosenthal were close. If she did witness something last Saturday night, she may have become completely unhinged.”
“Gotcha.” The sergeant reached for his computer again. “I’m going to send out special instructions to the guys to make sure they get back-up before approaching her. And to take her to Emerg if she loses it, instead of bringing her here.”
Green turned to leave. He felt bone-tired. “I want to be informed the minute you have any word.”
“What about her home? You want some surveillance on that in case she goes there?”
Green weighed the pros and cons. A car, even an unmarked one, would be so conspicuous on that quiet street that it would likely scare Caitlin off entirely. At the end of the afternoon discussion, the mother had seemed convinced of the possible danger to her daughter and of the police’s desire to help. She had his cellphone number and had promised to contact him if she had any news.
On the other hand, parents often had their own solutions.
“Do regular drive-bys, and if Patrol spots any signs of unusual activity, phone me.”
Finally, gratefully, Green headed out into the night. He stopped first at the General Hospital to visit the young patrol officer and was relieved to find him in fairly good spirits, surrounded by flowers and cards. The mood was less upbeat at the Heart Institute. Sullivan was dozing and not to be disturbed. He’d been agitated and medically unstable much of the day, prompting the doctor to order more sedation and slap a ban on visitors outside the immediate family.
“His wife’s on guard in the lounge,” said the nurse with a knowing tilt of her head towards the waiting room. “No one’s getting past her, least of all you.”
“But his health—is it improving?”
“He’s stable now. That’s good news. Beyond that, you’ll have to speak to his wife.”
Green steeled himself. He was frayed and exhausted, the adrenaline of the hunt still pumping uselessly through his veins. He doubted he had the strength for Mary’s rage, yet he owed her that. He owed Sullivan that.
She was curled in a soft-backed vinyl chair by the wall, her head propped on a pillow and a hospital blanket draped over her. She’d made no effort with her make-up or hair, leaving her vulnerability on show. She looked asleep, oblivious to the couple who chatted quietly in the opposite corner, but when Green entered the room, her eyes flew open. She stared at him, her expression cold.
“How are you holding up, Mary?”
“He’s had a bad day, thanks to you.”
“I know.” He sat down opposite her. “He would have heard it on TV anyway. I’m glad I was there, to give some perspective.”
“We wanted forty-eight hours, Mike. So his heart wouldn’t go haywire.”
“Did it?”
Her lips drew tight. “No. We were lucky, if you can call it that.”
“He’s a strong man,Mary. He’s survived this,he came out of the coma without any obvious damage, his heart is hanging in—”
“But he’ll never be the same.” She threw off her blanket and leaned forward. “Whatever you do, let him make the decisions he has to about his future. This is not about you this time, Mike. So you just step out of the way. Be a friend. If you know how.”
He told himself it was Mary’s fear talking. She had nearly lost her husband, and now she was fighting tooth and nail to keep him safe. But her words were still smarting when he arrived home to be greeted by an exuberant four-year-old, a large dog wagging her tail shyly, and a teenage daughter all dressed up and ready to go out the door.
Hannah stiffened when he wrapped her in his arms, but she was too startled to protest. He kissed her head as he pressed her close. She had cost him many sleepless nights, but slowly an intelligent, self-sufficient young woman was emerging. Considering the parent-child minefield of broken lives and hopes, he was incredibly lucky to have her.
“It’s been a really rough couple of days,” he said when he could trust himself. “Thank you for helping out. And for being you.”
She twisted away to peer at him dubiously. The black eyeliner was back tonight, but not the death’s door make-up. “It’s okay, Mike. Do you need me tonight?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “I could use the company,” but instead he shook his head. Ruffled his son’s dark hair. “No, we’ll manage. Go have a good time.”
She paused on the threshold, and he wondered if there was a hint of reluctance in her parting. Had he made a mistake in sending her away?
More likely wishful thinking, he decided as he fetched Modo’s leash and Tony’s jacket, and the three of them set off for a walk. The rain had blown over, leaving another starlit night with a threat of frost. Tony held his hand and skipped along the sidewalk, chattering about the Nintendo Wii his friend had just received for his birthday and reminding Green that his own birthday was less than two months away. Four years old, and already the gaming culture had its hold.
Avoiding Snakes and Ladders this time, father and son spent the evening building an elaborate space station from the hundreds of lego pieces that littered the living room floor. Throughout it all and the bedtime stories that followed, Green kept half an ear tuned for his cellphone, hoping for news that Caitlin O’Malley had been found. By midnight, he figured the prostitution street scene should be at its height, and he struggled to stay awake. Modo was snoozing at his feet, and The Daily Show was blaring from the TV when Sharo
n arrived home. She kicked off her shoes and peered into the living room, smiling in surprise.
“You’re still awake!”
“I’m waiting for some news from Patrol.” He muted the television. Stifling a yawn, he ambled stiffly over to kiss her.
She seemed distracted. “Why?”
He returned to sink back on the sofa with a sigh. “We’ve identified that woman in the photo you saw last night, but we haven’t found her. I have Uniforms out scouring known prostitution areas.”
“So she is a prostitute.”
He shook his head. “She’s actually a math PhD, but she’s mentally ill. She turns to prostitution sometimes when she’s on the street.”
Sharon slowly uncoiled her scarf from her neck. “Did you check her home?”
“Her parents haven’t seen her. That’s not unusual, according to the mother.”
She hung up her scarf and jacket. “Is it so urgent? I mean that you have an APB out on her?”
“Someone else is apparently looking for her too. It may be the killer looking to eliminate a witness. We need to find her first.”
Sharon said nothing as she disappeared into the kitchen. He checked his phone yet again to make sure the battery was still charged. She reappeared with a dish of ice cream and a glass of red wine. “Want some?”
He shook his head. “My mind is fried as it is.”
She sat down beside him and ate a spoonful of ice cream. She looked worried, and he brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “Hard shift?”
“I’ve been wondering whether to tell you this. It’s kind of unethical—well, no, it is unethical. That woman’s name, is it Caitlin O’Malley?”
He swung on her, eyes wide. “You know her?”
“She was admitted to Six North this week. She’s the one I mentioned to you, who came in through emergency, off her meds and extremely agitated.”
He sat up excitedly and reached for his phone. “I should call the hospital to put some protection on her.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “No, Mike. Wait.”
This Thing of Darkness Page 22