Do or Die

by Barbara Fradkin

  “I know. So Halton is pissed, is he?”

  Jules nodded. “I think he expected something slightly better from his friendship with Mrs. Blair than the appearance of two non-ranking detectives. No me, no you.”

  “No brass band.” Green shook his head dolefully. “I would have gone, but I had other arrangements to make, and we had to move very fast. As it is, the horse has probably already left the barn.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Green took twenty minutes to summarize the progress of the investigation to date and to outline his next moves. He was about to broach the subject of expenses when there was a sharp knock at the door, and Sullivan flung it open. He was so excited that the sight of Jules barely gave him pause.

  “A suspect! Maybe two or three. The Raquel Haddad connection.”

  Jules glanced at Green, eyebrows high. “You didn’t mention a Raquel Haddad connection.”

  “That’s just another avenue we’re pursuing,” Green replied irritably. “On the back-burner right now.”

  Sullivan flourished a report. “Not any more! Some heavy-duty stuff was going on between Raquel, her uncle and Blair on the day he was killed.”

  Green perked up. “Tell me!”

  “First, you know that Blair and Raquel were likely an item. Well, a student saw Blair in the student coffee shop eating supper with a black-haired woman. The student phoned our hotline once she saw Blair’s picture in the paper. Anyway,” Sullivan flipped open his notebook, “the witness said they were sitting very close, whispering. The black-haired girl was crying, and then this student overheard Blair say to her ‘But he’d never really do it!’ and Raquel said ‘You don’t know him! You don’t know my family!’ A few minutes later these two tough-looking guys come along and they tell her to come with them. She starts to get up and Jonathan Blair tells them to lay off, it’s a free country. And she shouts ‘Jonathan, don’t!’ They grab her arm. Jonathan steps between them, and they punch him. He falls over the table. They’re hauling Raquel along, Jonathan starts after them, and she yells at him to go away. Then they all get out of view, and our witness didn’t see what else happened.”

  “What time was this?”

  “About six-thirty.”

  “These tough-looking guys, what did they look like?” Sullivan glanced through his notebook. “Twentyish. Medium height and weight, thick dark hair, brown eyes, heavy eyebrows. One had a mustache. Dressed in casual summer clothes. One had on a light T-shirt and jeans, the other a black Metallica T-shirt and black jeans. No distinguishing marks.”

  “Twentyish?” Green frowned. “Raquel’s uncle is in his forties and fat.”

  Sullivan shrugged. “Henchmen, probably. An older, heavy-134 set, dark guy was seen arguing with Raquel outside Halton’s building earlier that afternoon.”

  Green sat up sharply. “Seen by whom?”

  “David Miller.”

  “Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me!”

  “I’m telling you now. I just saw the report.”

  Green frowned in thought, tapping his pencil against his desk. “Might be just a coincidence. Okay, this has to be low key. Get a photo of Pierre Haddad and show a photo line-up to Miller. See if he can make a positive ID on the guy arguing with Raquel.”

  Sullivan’s eyes flitted from Green to Jules. “Low-key?”

  Green shrugged. “Just don’t spook him. The guy’s paranoid about cops. Tell him it’s routine, standard operating procedure—improvise. Just don’t mention the fight in the coffee shop. If this is our guy, I don’t want to tip him off, or he’ll send those young thugs underground.”

  Even before the door had closed on Sullivan, Green was riffling through the files on the floor. He had glimpsed the background check on Pierre Haddad earlier in passing, but had discarded it as irrelevant to the mystery of the research data. Now he pounced on it.

  The team investigating the background of the Haddad family had come up with precious little. From the tone of the report it sounded as if the entire Lebanese community had shut down tight at the first sight of the police. Official records provided a skeleton of information but little insight into the family. Pierre Haddad, a Christian, had immigrated from Beirut in 1978 through regular immigration channels, not as a refugee. Initially, he had worked as a taxi driver, but in 1984, he had purchased the corner confectionary store in Little Italy. His payments to the Toronto Dominion Bank were regular and reliable, and his business dealings seemed completely above board.

  A search of police and motor vehicle records had revealed the same wholesome picture. Haddad had no record of criminal activity and only a handful of traffic tickets to his name. He owned two cars, a Taurus family sedan and a four-wheel drive pick-up. Expensive, but not outrageous. Since 1988 Haddad had lived with his family in a modest bungalow in the older Ottawa suburb of Elmvale Acres. His wife was also a Lebanese Christian and the couple had made a strict, traditional Lebanese home for their two sons, who were now young men. The neighbours reported that the Haddads were a quiet, courteous family who kept to themselves but were happy to lend a hand in an emergency. The father in particular was popular with the neighbourhood children, because he sometimes gave out free candy.

  Another Mr. Perfect, thought Green grimly as he saw his theory gradually turn to dust. No temper, no history of violence or intimidation.

  As he was scanning, he had forgotten Jules, who was reading over his shoulder, until Jules’ quiet voice cut in. “Michael, this could be sticky.”

  Green cocked his head, puzzled. Jules waved a manicured hand. “The Middle East, you know. Things can be …misconstrued.”

  “Adam, so far I have a fight and a tyrannical uncle, not an international plot. There’s nothing here to suggest anything political.”

  “What about the young men who assaulted Blair in the coffee shop?”

  “They could be just sons of friends. Did CSIS or the RCMP turn up any connection to political groups? Terrorists, organized crime?”

  Jules shook his head. “But ethnic groups usually stick together. If one person is in trouble, the others pitch in, like one big happy family—”

  Green broke in abruptly, his eyes widening. “Family!” He dived for the report he had tossed aside and scanned it, reaching for the phone. “Pierre Haddad has two sons who might be twentyish.”

  “Michael, please. Remember the rule book.”

  Green paused, his hand on the receiver. “I’m just going to tell Sullivan to get pictures of the two sons and show them to our coffee shop witness. If she can ID either of them as being involved in the fight, we’ll take it from there. Is that ‘by the book’ enough for you?”

  Jules paused on his way out the door. “Keep me informed.”

  Once he had relayed the added requests to Sullivan, Green sat in his office, feeling restless and ill at ease. Had he forgotten anything? The Halton files had been seized and an expert lined up to review them the next day. Alibis had been obtained on all Blair’s known colleagues, and background checks had been done on Pierre Haddad. Blair’s activities had been traced on the day he died and arrangements made to identify the suspects who had assaulted him shortly before his death. Nothing tied in directly to the murder, but it was the best he could do. For now, it was a waiting game.

  He glanced at his watch. Past five o’clock. He looked at the phone, thinking of Sharon and remembering the bitterness in her eyes when he had thrown her out. He should send her some flowers. A dozen red roses with a note saying “I’m sorry”. She was his wife, after all. She put up with a lot, and she was entitled to better.

  Entitled, he thought with dismay. Is that the word that comes to mind when I think of her? Not love, not passion— but entitlement? He put his face in his hands with a groan. This relationship was not going to go the way of all his previous ones, three or four years and off to greener pastures. He tried to picture Sharon as she had been in the beginning, when he had fallen so hard. Fresh, wise-cracking and sexy, with a sly smile that drove him crazy a
nd a tender wisdom that brought a lump to his throat.

  But instead, his mind conjured up honey-blond hair, tight jeans and a full, pouting mouth.

  He jerked his head up, the memory chasing out all else. There was a stone unturned! There was someone who might be able to tie the Haddads directly to the murder.

  Nine

  Carrie MacDonald answered her apartment bell on the second ring, at first peering out warily, then flinging the door wide at the sight of Green.

  “I thought you had forgotten all about me!” she cried, eyes shining, and he was grateful she could not read his mind. Forgotten like hell! “Come on in. I’ve been getting so many nuisance callers that I’m almost thinking of moving.”

  The policeman in him reacted. “What kind of nuisance callers?” he demanded sharply.

  “Oh, reporters, nosy neighbours. I just slam the door in their faces.” Seeing his worried look, she smiled. “I can take care of myself, have since I was nine. It’s my daughter. If they start bugging her…”

  “Get a good dead bolt installed, and a chain and peephole.”

  She pranced after him as he made his way into the living room. “Aye, aye, sir. Want some tea? Coffee? You look tired.”

  He rubbed his eyes as he sank down on the sofa. Toys were strewn all over the floor, reminding him of home. And Sharon. He still hadn’t called her, hadn’t sent her flowers. He banished the guilt with an effort. “Long hours. Tea would be nice.”

  “How’s it coming?” she called over her shoulder from her tiny kitchen.

  “It’s coming. That’s why I’m here. I want you to look at some photos.”

  She came back into the room and leaned against the doorframe. Her smile scattered his thoughts. With an effort he took out the envelope he had just obtained from Sullivan and laid eight scanned photographs out on the cluttered coffee table, among them Pierre Haddad and his two sons. She came to sit at his side on the sofa, her thigh brushing his.

  His voice sounded hoarse when he spoke. “Did you see any of these men on the fourth floor of the library at any time on the evening of the stabbing?”

  Honey-coloured hair cascaded over her face as she bent close to study the line-up. The urge to brush it aside for her was almost irresistible. He locked his hands in his lap. She took the task seriously, and her eyes probed each picture in turn before she finally looked up at him, curls falling in her eyes. She pushed them aside as she shook her head.

  “I feel bad. I’d like to help, but none of these guys looks familiar.”

  The kettle began to whistle, and she sprang to her feet. For a moment he was left to slow his breathing and wrestle his desires under control. This time it’s bad, he thought to himself. But it’s purely physical, something to do with coming home every night to find your wife on her knees mopping up pablum and smelling of milk.

  He could hear the soft tinkle of spoons, and even that sounded seductive. When she came back into the room balancing two mugs in her hands, he thought she too looked flushed. She held out his tea and his fingers brushed hers, sending a jolt of electricity through him. He realized she was talking, and he forced himself to focus on her words.

  “I do have the drawings you asked me to do, though. Maybe they will help.”

  She disappeared and reappeared seconds later with a large sketch pad. Eagerly, she sat at his side again and leaned forward to spread out her drawings. Her loose fitting plaid shirt gaped open at the neck. Green wrenched his eyes from her cleavage to the table. Arranged before him were four pencil drawings of faces gazing out at him. There was a fat John Candy look-alike, a skinny horse-faced youth with acne and a dark, liquid-eyed man with wavy hair and a mustache. The fourth was a woman, staring out hard-eyed through a cloud of frizz. The drawings were exquisite and almost seemed to breathe as he looked at them. He sensed something strangely familiar about them, but the more he stared the more elusive the feeling became. He had seen someone like this, he knew it. Perhaps, when his body was calmer and his thoughts more collected, he would be able to remember.

  * * *

  Green pulled back into the police station parking lot just as Sullivan slewed his unmarked Taurus around the corner and screeched to a halt. The big man leaped out, eyes dancing.

  Green waited for him. “Good news?”

  “A double-hitter!”

  “What!”

  Sullivan slapped Green on the back. “Come on, I’m starved. Buy me a steak at the Crown and Castle and I’ll fill you in.”

  “Me buy you? Since when?”

  “Who’s the one with the inspector’s salary? And who wants to know the good news?”

  Green knew Sullivan was teasing him, but since he had forgotten lunch and it was now past dinnertime, a steak and a draft was not a bad price to pay for Sullivan’s report. He thought briefly of Sharon, who was probably wondering if she should leave some dinner for him before she left for work. But Sullivan’s dancing eyes got the better of him. Besides, through trial and error, surely Sharon had learned to let him fend for himself. I hope, he thought as he scrambled after Sullivan’s retreating back. The two men covered the three blocks up Elgin Street in two minutes. The sun had mercifully sunk behind the tall buildings, but its heat hung on, and Green felt sweat break out on his back.

  “I had a bit of trouble with Raquel’s Uncle Pierre,” Sullivan chatted as he strode, seemingly oblivious to the heat. “He wanted a lawyer’s opinion. I said we were just tracing Blair’s activities and wanted to be able to rule out people who weren’t involved. Eventually, he agreed. Gave me a picture of Raquel too.” He pulled a photo from his pocket and held it out. “Gorgeous piece, eh?”

  Green glanced at the picture of a dark-eyed beauty with a wide, sexy smile and sparkling eyes. Like Sharon’s. He pushed it away with a grimace. “Don’t talk to me about gorgeous pieces.”

  Sullivan shot him a brief, quizzical glance as they turned to enter the cool, dark interior of the pub. Sullivan was greeted by off-duty policemen and other regulars and stopped to exchange jokes on his way to the table, leaving Green to stand by, impatient and left out. Despite his dedication to his family and his strict one-drink limit, Sullivan could always be one of the boys, whereas Green remained an outsider. As they sat, he frowned at Sullivan irritably.

  “So? What did you find?”

  “First let me get a beer.” He signalled the waiter.

  “Brian!”

  Sullivan laughed. “Okay. I showed a photo line-up to David Miller, and without hesitation, he picked out Pierre Haddad as the guy he saw arguing with Raquel outside Halton’s building Tuesday afternoon. Then I tracked down the student who reported the fight in the coffee shop, and I showed her a line-up with all the Haddads in it—I stuck Miller and Difalco in there too—”

  He broke off as the waiter brought them two foaming mugs of draft beer. Eyes alight, he reached for his.

  “Goddamn it, Brian! And?”

  Sullivan took a long, deep swallow. “Ah-h! And? Guess what, Mike. She took one look at the two Haddad boys and bingo!”

  “Bingo? No hesitation?”

  “None at all.”

  “Hah!” Green pounded the table. “All right! The trap is closing.”

  “So what’s next? Haul them in for questioning?”

  Green shook his head, his mind racing. “We don’t have enough on them yet.”

  “What are you talking about! We have an assault against the victim three hours before his death.”

  “But we still can’t place them at the scene.”

  “We could lean on them. The two kids’d probably crumble.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But we couldn’t make it stick, and their old man would be screaming police harassment and racial discrimination before the ink was dry.”

  “So what?” Sullivan stared at Green in surprise. “Since when do you care?”

  “I don’t,” Green snapped, wondering why he was hesitating. Was it because of Jules’ warning or something else? “I just don’t want these guy
s spooked and covering their tracks. Carrie MacDonald can’t place them at the library that night. That’s a big hole. Without more evidence to tie them to the scene, we’ll lose this one.”

  Sullivan sighed and shook his head, deflated. “Oh well, I promised Danny and Mark a Blue Jays game this month. Kind of a Father’s Day treat. Maybe this way I’ll even be able to afford it, if the overtime doesn’t kill me first.”

  Father’s Day. Green had a flash of himself with his own son ten years from now. Father-son sports games, especially hockey, were a Canadian rite of passage. He could even remember his own father, with his post-Holocaust fears of crowds and noise, trying to leave shtetl Poland behind him and packing them both onto the bus to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Montreal Forum. Once. Mechugas, his father had proclaimed after watching fans scream drunkenly at the little black disc being whacked around the rink. Craziness. And since then, at any sports game he had ever tried to attend, Green could still hear that word ringing in his head.

  But that was a father-son sports memory in itself, he thought. As sappy as any once-in-a-lifetime trek down to the Toronto Skydome. And now that Ottawa had its own hockey team as well as baseball, he had no excuse for not giving his own son something to remember him by.

  He wanted to ask Sullivan how old a child had to be to enjoy a ball game, but he was afraid Sullivan would have the tickets bought and a picnic lunch packed for them all before he even turned around. Despite twenty years of friendship on the job, he wasn’t ready for that. Instead, he picked up the earlier thread.

  “No overtime,” he replied, then had a sinking sensation. “At least not for you. I have to get a search warrant for the Haddad house. We have enough evidence for that. And tomorrow we’ll go in mid-morning when the men are likely to be out.”

  “And we’re looking for?”

  “Three things. Bloody clothes, Blair’s wallet, or a six-inch, double-bladed knife. If we get any of those, then we pick the bastards up.”

  * * *

  Two search warrants in one day, Green thought as he finally arrived at his apartment door. I should get a medal for devotion to paper pushing. It was past midnight, but he found himself reluctant to go in. He leaned against the door, steeling himself for a confrontation. He had never sent the roses, never even called to apologize or warn her about dinner. He didn’t even know if she was home or still working the night shift, and he realized with a pang how distant they had become. Memories of Carrie MacDonald wafted in uninvited. Of her tumbling blonde curls and her rising breasts. He remembered his arousal, the feeling of freshness and adventure.