This Thing of Darkness

by Barbara Fradkin

  “I won’t say you told me, honey. In fact I’ll get Levesque to make the call. But bottom line, I don’t want anyone getting to her.”

  Sharon had been shaking her head impatiently. “She’s gone. She was discharged this afternoon.”

  He was flabbergasted. “After less than a week?”

  “The nurses were equally appalled, believe me, but her father assured us he could take care of her.”

  “Her father!”

  She nodded. “He came and signed her out this afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “Just before my shift. About two thirty.”

  Green’s mind raced over the time line. That was before his encounter with Caitlin O’Malley’s mother. Either the woman didn’t know what her husband had done and they hadn’t arrived home yet, or she’d been lying through her teeth.

  Whichever the case, the parents had some explaining to do. More than six hours had elapsed since his conversation with Mrs. O’Malley. Six hours for Patrick to arrive home with Caitlin, six hours for them to settle her in and take stock. Mrs. O’Malley had Green’s phone number and knew damn well that he was waiting for news on Caitlin’s whereabouts.

  He reached for his phone again and this time dialled the official surveillance unit. These guys knew how to be inconspicuous. No suits, no late-model, spit-polished Impalas. They would pick a vehicle to blend in.

  The sergeant on duty sounded harried. Saturday night was a busy one in surveillance.

  “Have you got bodies you can spare?”

  “Life or death?” the sergeant grumbled.

  Green chuckled. “Maybe. I want unmarked surveillance on Patrick O’Malley’s house on Rothwell Drive, and I want a notation of every single movement inside the house, upstairs and down.”

  Twenty-Two

  For the second day in a row, Green was up at seven a.m., this time dragging himself downstairs and fumbling around the kitchen to brew sufficient caffeine to sustain him. His dreams had once again been tortured by visions of the crash, of Lindsay’s crushed body and Sullivan’s grey face. He forced them aside with an effort and slumped at the table with a huge mug of French roast in his hand, trying to sort out the priorities of the morning. Despite his worries about Sullivan and the young patrolman, and his concern for Lindsay Corsin’s family, he realized, once enough caffeine had penetrated his neurons, that safety of the public came first. He phoned downtown to get an update on the surveillance of Caitlin O’Malley’s house.

  There was not much news. The surveillance team reported that the lights were out when they arrived, and although they had come on briefly in a downstairs room at 2:36, 3:20 and 4:57 a.m., no one had entered or left the premises all night.

  Someone had a restless night, Green thought, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances. Through the sheer curtains, the surveillance team had been able to establish the movement of at least two people inside, but not three. The team also reported one vehicle visible in the driveway—a BMW sports car registered to Patrick O’Malley. The garage doors were closed, however, and Green knew the Lexus was probably inside. The Motor Vehicle Licensing Bureau listed a third vehicle in the family, this one a Lincoln Town car registered to the law firm of O’Malley, Hendrickson and Potts. Without a search warrant or a clandestine peek, however, there was no way to determine whether it was also in the garage.

  Green sipped his coffee, considering the facts. The vehicles were in exactly the same configuration as yesterday. The surveillance team had seen no usual activity at the house, other than evidence that someone had been awake a few times. Furthermore, they had seen only two people, not three. Was Caitlin even there?

  Abruptly, another sinister possibility jumped into his mind. What if Caitlin had not left the hospital with her father after all? Someone else had been looking for her yesterday, someone who was tall and drove a dark green sedan.

  On impulse, he looked up the O’Malley phone number and dialled. The phone rang four times before switching to voicemail. Green listened to a man’s clipped, authoritative voice and left a message asking them to call him immediately. Afterwards he hung up, feeling queasy. He needed to know if Caitlin was safe. If the O’Malleys refused to cooperate, another search warrant would be needed to confirm that Caitlin was being sequestered there. No judge—no matter how police-friendly—would take on O’Malley, Hendrickson and Potts without considerably more ammunition.

  Sharon came into the kitchen, poured herself some coffee and tossed the morning Citizen on the table. “Caitlin’s front page news.”

  Green snatched up the paper. There, above the fold on the first page, was the fuzzy video photo along with the caption “Police seek woman as possible witness to slaying”. The article itself, short on facts but long on speculation, included the hint that the woman was a known prostitute hiding from gang members implicated in the murder. “Caitlin O’Malley, only child of prominent Rothwell Heights attorney Patrick O’Malley, is a troubled woman grappling with health issues,” the article said.

  “Who gave them this shit!” Green exclaimed, thrusting the paper aside in alarm. It was an empty question. Like cops, reporters had their own network of informants on the street. Now, because of their hunger for headlines, not only did the actual killer know there was a potential eyewitness to the killing, but he had her name and picture, along with a fairly good lead on her location.

  “The man who picked up Caitlin yesterday—are the nurses sure it was her father?”

  Sharon frowned at him, puzzled. “Well, I wasn’t there but—”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know, Mike, but surely...” Sharon’s eyes widened. “You think someone else took her? But—but Caitlin’s father is well known. He visited every day, and he’s a prominent lawyer in town. Who would be brazen enough to pull that off?”

  “I don’t know if anyone did. I just can’t confirm she’s at home right now.”

  “But why would she go off with a man pretending to be her father? She’s paranoid—she’d never go along with it.”

  Green snatched up the phone again and dialled the Major Crimes Unit. He was lucky enough to snag Gibbs just coming in.

  “Pull a photo of Patrick O’Malley off the internet and show it to the nurses who were on day shift at the Rideau Psychiatric Hospital yesterday. We need him confirmed as the man who signed Caitlin O’Malley out.”

  After he’d signed off, he felt Sharon’s incredulous gaze upon him. “This is crazy. Who else could it be? It would have to be someone white and middle-aged. Your main suspects are young and black.”

  “The most obvious person is David Rosenthal, the dead man’s son. He’s a completely unknown entity in this whole situation. We do know he was estranged from his father and anxious to get his hands on his money. He did not appear to know his father had changed his will, and he became outraged when he learned he was getting nothing. I think he was at the O’Malley house yesterday, looking for Caitlin.” He considered what little he knew about David Rosenthal. “He’s a man of tremendous physical strength, quite capable of beating someone to death. He’s also a man of action, used to going after what he wants. But...” Green shook his head slowly. “I didn’t get any sense of guilt or regret from him. If he’d killed his father, I’d expect some distress.”

  “Unless he’s a psychopath.”

  Green pondered the idea. Despite all David’s arrogance and contempt for lesser beings, Green had a secret liking for the man. Perhaps liking was too strong a word. Esteem. David had been the first on the spot to save Sullivan’s life and had stayed around to see how all the victims were faring before he dropped out of sight again. Surely those were signs of a man who cared.

  Yet psychopaths made excellent heroes, because they were without fear and acted without the complex self-doubts that hampered more sensitive people. Furthermore, a display of caring would be well within the acting range of an intelligent psychopath. Perhaps Green was blinded by the man’s heroic gestur
e that had saved his friend’s life.

  Green contacted Gibbs again, relieved to catch the young detective before he headed out to Rideau Psychiatric. “Who else is there in the squad room?”

  “Just Sergeant Collins.”

  Green hesitated. It would take too long to brief Collins on the background of the case and would tread too hard on Levesque’s toes. Levesque was probably still in bed sleeping off the effects of her hot date. The woman was entitled to some time free of the job.

  “When you’re finished at the hospital, I want you to do some background inquiries on David Rosenthal. First I want to know exactly when he crossed the border and secondly if he has any history of violent or criminal activity in the U.S.” True psychopaths had trouble keeping their nature completely under wraps and often had a chequered history of driving violations, neighbourhood conflicts and minor disputes. The United States’ patchwork of law enforcement jurisdictions would make it a nightmare to track them down, but if anyone could, it was Gibbs.

  “On Sunday, sir?”

  Green knew the dismay had nothing to do with laziness. Official agencies would be on skeleton staff. “Do what you can. Oh! And check with the Rent-Me car agency to see if he exchanged a white van for a dark green sedan yesterday.”

  A brief silence. “W-would it be all right, sir, if Detective Peters came in to help me? She likes t-to be busy.”

  Another reason for Gibbs’ reluctance, Green realized, reminding himself that all his detectives had lives. Including himself, he thought when he hung up to find Sharon eyeing him dubiously.

  “A dark green sedan? Sounds like a Le Carré novel.”

  “A man driving a dark green sedan paid a visit to the O’Malley house yesterday. Spooked the mother out completely.”

  Sharon sipped her coffee. “But that could be anyone. A door-to-door salesman or canvasser for charity.”

  “It could be, but Mrs. O’Malley didn’t seem to think so.”

  Sharon looked skeptical, a sentiment he was beginning to share. This was turning into a bad spy novel with a young woman in peril and mysterious figures slipping in and out of the shadows. Had Caitlin left the hospital with her father, or had she been abducted by another white, middle-aged man? Was that the same man who had called at her home earlier in a dark green sedan, or were there two different men both out to get her? What for? To find out what she knew? To protect her, or to silence her?

  Equally important, how did this mystery man know who and where she was, even before her photo had been released to the media?

  “Did Caitlin have any visitors other than her parents during her stay at Rideau Psychiatric?” he asked.

  “What, like a young black male wearing a hoodie and giant shoes?”

  He laughed. “Anyone.”

  “Not that I know of. Just her father, who came every night.”

  “Could someone have called to ask how she was?”

  “Yes, but they would get no information, not even confirmation that she was there.”

  He turned the problem over and over in his mind. It was probably a wild goose chase, but he had to explore it. “Let’s assume the killer realized that a prostitute working that street corner had witnessed the murder. He’d be trying to find her. He’d ask around on the street and probably come back to see if he could find her another night. But how would he know she was at Rideau Psychiatric?”

  Sharon’s face registered a belated memory. “Well, Mike, you guys arrested her. Picked her up in the market a couple of days later. Lots of bystanders probably witnessed that.”

  He stared at her. “What? The Ottawa Police?”

  “Yes. She was agitated and ranting, scaring passersby with stories of blood and Satan. Eventually you guys shipped her to Emerg.”

  Green slammed his hand on the table. “Why the fuck did no one tell me! What kind of morons do we have on Patrol that they didn’t think there was a connection? We’re turning over rocks looking for a hooker in the market, and meanwhile they’ve just picked up one who’s ranting about blood?” He was about to grab the phone again, this time to ream out the duty sergeant of Central Division, but he stopped himself and forced a couple of deep breaths. He began to cobble together the chain of events.

  “There were probably lots of witnesses to this arrest, maybe even the killer himself. That may in fact be how he knew Caitlin was a threat to him. It would be reasonable for him to assume the patrol officers took her to Emerg, also reasonable to assume she’d be transferred to a psychiatric facility.”

  “Rideau Psychiatric is the biggest facility,” Sharon added.

  He nodded. “But how would he know where to find her, without her name?”

  “Maybe by checking out each ward,” she said. “He could pretend to be visiting someone else. It might take him a few days, but once he saw her, he’d have his answer.”

  “And her name?”

  Sharon shrugged. “It depends how resourceful he is, and how trustworthy he looks.”

  Green pictured David Rosenthal, white, middle-aged, and well-educated, striding confidently onto a ward with a clipboard in hand and a doctor title to back him up. “I bet he could just ask,” he said.

  Screech snarled and yanked his new sleeping bag more tightly over his head. Green squatted at his side, balancing a fresh cup of Tim Hortons coffee in one hand as he shook the man’s shoulder with the other.

  “Screech, wake up.”

  “Fuck off!”

  Green pulled the sleeping bag back to uncover the old vagrant, who pressed his eyes shut against the invading sunlight. Dried spittle flecked his beard, and yellow mucous oozed from his eyes. Green held the coffee under his nose.

  “Foxy needs your help. She may be in danger. I need your eyes on the street, so sit up and take this. Please.”

  It took some coaxing, but finally the old man was propped against the brick wall, clutching the coffee with both tremulous hands.

  “This better be good,” he muttered. “Disturbing a man in the middle of his sleep.”

  “You remember the night Foxy got arrested? Did you see that?”

  “Foxy?” Screech’s eyes clouded over.

  Green prodded him. “Yeah, your Foxy—the working girl with the fur coat. A patrol car picked her up last Tuesday night. Ten o’clock in the evening, in that parking lot right over there.” Green gestured across the parking lot to a building painted sky blue and surrounded by crumbling pavement intended for client parking but more frequently used for drug deals and fast sex. A cluster of garbage bins, recycling bins and dumpsters lined the back of the building, which housed a discount hair salon in its death throes. The building itself looked on the verge of being condemned.

  Screech swivelled his head to follow Green’s finger. The caffeine began to penetrate, and slowly a frown creased his leathery brow. “Yeah, I seen it. More like heard it. It were enough to wake the dead. Started off just telling people they were all going to die, then they were all dead.” Screech shook his head. “Poor Foxy, always did have a bad view of things. That night all the folks was evil, out to trick her. She was up and down the sidewalk jabbering and scaring off my business. Anyway, they came and got her. Fought them like a wildcat. I never seen her that bad.” He swivelled back to Green. “You got a loonie for a dying man?”

  His eyes were runny and criss-crossed with spidery red, but Green could see the telltale yellow tinge of liver disease. He felt a fatalistic sorrow. He took out a five-dollar bill.

  “This is very important. Was there anyone else hanging around watching her, who might have witnessed her arrest? A John maybe, or just a curious guy?”

  Screech blinked. “What arrest?”

  “Foxy’s. Did anyone see Foxy get picked up?”

  Screech shrugged. “Lots of guys. Peak cruising hour.”

  “Anybody try to intervene?”

  The vagrant scrunched up his nose in bafflement. “Mix in,” Green amended.

  Screech locked his gaze on the five-dollar bill. “Sure. May
be.”

  The hand holding the coffee cup began to droop, spilling some of the hot liquid on Screech’s leg. He didn’t flinch. Gently Green eased the cup back up towards his lips. Wondering whether he was wasting his time, he pulled a sheaf of photos out of an envelope. He’d downloaded some of them from the internet, but they made a passable lineup. David Rosenthal from his company website, Patrick O’Malley from a recent fundraising gala, and three recent victims of fatal crashes. He held the photos up one by one.

  “Did you see any of these guys on the night she was arrested?”

  Screech studied them all, blinking slowly and flicking his gaze at the money frequently, as if afraid it would vanish. “I was pretty busy, like,” he began. He looked unhappy at the prospect of losing his payment. Then his face brightened. “That one. I seen that one. Not that night.”

  Green glanced at the photo of Patrick O’Malley. “When?”

  Screech wagged his head in bafflement. “Coupla nights later? He was around awhile. Parked his car at the beer store. Asked me the same thing as you.”

  “What exactly did he ask?”

  “If I seen the girl get arrested. If anyone else did.”

  What’s this all about? Green wondered. “What did you tell him?”

  “That I was busy. He asked if she left anything, then or another night.” He slurped his coffee. “Didn’t like the look of him, didn’t want Foxy in trouble, so I said no. He went looking anyway.”

  Green almost dropped the photo. “Looking for what?”

  “Beats me. He was looking through all them garbage cans, dirty job for a fancy man like that, got a silver sports car and all.”

  “What did he find?”

  Screech fixed his gaze on Green’s face. “You gonna give me that five or not? Mr. Fancy pants gave me a twenty.”

  Green put the five away and took out a twenty. “For this, I expect a straight answer. What did he find in the garbage?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  Screech scowled. “Didn’t I say that? He looked in corners, he opened up bags. Nothing.”